Barking Mad

Bush Words Reflect Public Opinion Strategy

By Peter Baker and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 30, 2005; Page A01

When President Bush confidently predicts victory in Iraq and admits no mistakes, admirers see steely resolve and critics see exasperating stubbornness. But the president's full-speed-ahead message articulated in this week's prime-time address also reflects a purposeful strategy based on extensive study of public opinion about how to maintain support for a costly and problem-plagued military mission.

The White House recently brought onto its staff one of the nation's top academic experts on public opinion during wartime, whose studies are now helpingBush craft his message two years into a war with no easy end in sight. Behind the president's speech is a conviction among White House officials that the battle for public opinion on Iraq hinges on their success in convincing Americans that, whatever their views of going to war in the first place, the conflict there must and can be won.

"There's going to be an appetite by some to relitigate past decisions," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. But the studies consulted by the White House show that in the long run public support for war is "mostly linked to whether you think you can prevail," he added, which is one reason it is important for Bush to explain "why he thinks it's working and why he thinks it'll win."

For Bush, Bartlett emphasized, the public rhetoric matches the private conviction that his strategy will succeed. But it also leaves Bush in the difficult position of balancing confidence and credibility. The more optimism Bush expresses, the more criticism he draws from Congress and commentators that he is not facing the reality of a tenacious insurgency that, according to U.S. military commanders, remains as potent today as six months ago.

Bush has never been one to dwell publicly on past miscalculations in Iraq, on such issues as weapons of mass destruction, the reception forecast for invading U.S. troops and the durability of the armed resistance after the fall of Saddam Hussein. As he continues to tout progress in the face of near-daily car bombings, critics say, his standing with the public will continue to slip.

"Unless they're more candid with the American people, there's no reason to think the drift in public opinion is going to turn around," said P.J. Crowley of the Center for American Progress, a retired Air Force colonel who was a national security aide in the Clinton White House.

Bush adversaries insisted yesterday that they remain no less committed to victory and denied engaging in defeatism. "I really do think it's winnable, but you've got to keep the American people following with you," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said in an interview. "That's why I urged them to give the speech. He told us the why. He didn't tell us the how. Business as usual won't get us there. I think he has to change some policy or alter some policy."

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who has also been highly critical of Bush's handling of the war effort, rushed out a statement after Tuesday night's speech asserting his own confidence in victory. "I have had differences with the administration over the planning and execution of our postwar policy in Iraq," he said. "However, we all are working toward finding a way to succeed in Iraq."

At stake is the ability to sustain a war that so far has claimed the lives of nearly 1,750 U.S. troops and that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has predicted could last years. The Bush team is acutely aware that public support remains critical for the long-term viability of such a venture, and in the face of sagging polls in recent weeks it has determined to refocus energy on shoring up popular opinion.

Unfortunately, saying you are winning and actually winning are two different things. Bush can spin his losing strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the spin doesn't change the facts. The facts are crushing his feeble arguments.

As the Crow...

I'm one of those "up with the sun, down with the sun" people, so I'll leave you late nighters to fight out what we posted today. I'm so tired that my teeth hurt. Founding a new wiki is harder work than anything W ever did. Go look at the contributions. These are the working hard folk who don't just cut brush.

Out of Touch

It's Not the Heat, It's the Uncertainty
# Washington's staffers and activists suspend summer vacation plans, anxiously awaiting a Rehnquist retirement that has yet to occur.

By Faye Fiore and Janet Hook, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — The possible retirement of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist has taken shape as a hulking storm front approaching this anxious city. It won't rain. It won't blow over. It's just parked there. Rumbling.

An entire industry of activist groups is waiting to lurch into action should the ailing jurist decide to create the first Supreme Court vacancy in 11 years — as many experts had expected him to do Monday, when the high court issued its last rulings for the current session.

They all had game plans for what to do if Rehnquist announced his departure. But he didn't, and now Washington is stuck in a heightened state of readiness.

Vacation plans are in limbo. Kids have been plopped into camps. Million-dollar ad campaigns are stuck in their starting blocks.

Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a conservative group organizing support for President Bush's judicial nominees, wore a necktie to work Monday so he'd look nice for television interviews that never happened.

One Democratic staff member for the Senate Judiciary Committee moved up her wedding plans from August to April, knowing she'd be good and married should the chief justice decide to make any summer announcements.

The office of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, has been in a holding pattern for weeks. His senior aide, Stephanie Cutter, bought travel insurance so she can scratch her Labor Day trip to Paris if she needs to; communications director Laura Capps is planning a simple August camping trip with no hotel or plane to cancel, just in case.

And Laurie Boeder, director of media relations for the liberal group People for the American Way, was at her battle station this week, having canceled an annual trip with friends to Lake Elsie in North Dakota.

"That means I will miss the Fourth of July pontoon boat parade," she said.

People for the American Way had staff at work all last weekend, making sure the research it had compiled on potential nominees was at the ready. The group was hardly disappointed when Rehnquist made no announcement: Liberals generally expect that his replacement will be no more to their liking.

The retirement of the 80-year-old chief justice, whenever it comes, is bound to prompt a clash of liberal and conservative titans. But how loud or how bloody, no one can say.

For Gary Bauer, a conservative activist who ran for president in 2000, the uncertainty has had one clear effect: "Increasing my personal purchase of Pepto-Bismol."

The waiting game also is making some here feel rather unseemly. Most people have felt genuine compassion for Rehnquist since he was diagnosed as having thyroid cancer in the fall, even while they have been plotting strategies to influence the choice of his replacement.

"It's always been a little uncomfortable for those of us who care about his potential vacancy to be hovering around like a bunch of vultures," Bauer said.

But politics usually trumps protocol in Washington, and some interest groups haven't bothered to wait for the official word.

Progress for America, a pro-Bush political organization, put up the first television ad of the court battle last week, spending $700,000 to warn that liberals would launch a smear campaign against whomever Bush nominates. The group has another ad ready to go to 8.7 million e-mail addresses, as well as banner ads for popular websites, spokesman Stuart Roy said.

"Everyone is ready for a great debate on the court, especially after some of the rulings this term," Bauer said, referring to two decisions that limited property rights and the posting of the Ten Commandments. "It may be now, in six months, or in a year."

To fully appreciate the restlessness, consider the Washingtonian rite of summer.

July Fourth is the kickoff, with tourists flocking here to see the glorious fireworks display on the National Mall — which locals desperately avoid, leaving town if at all possible. Then folks count the days until August, when Congress adjourns and the city crawls into a state of hibernation — sort of like Paris, but stickier. (Unlike the City of Light, the City of Marble was built on a swamp.) Anybody who is anybody heads for some oceanfront spot. Plans are usually made months in advance.

Not this time.

While the Kewl Kids are worrying about their Rehobeth deposits and their kids' summer camps, there is a whole swath of America that doesn't get vacations and can't send its kids to camp. I'm taking my first vacation since 1998 this summer. This article is so Beltway Insider that it makes me nauseous. I'm supposed to feel sorry for the lobbiests and reporters? Give me a fucking break.

Yes, the weather in DC sucks. Deal with it.

Flu Wiki-The Interview

This is the fruit of the interviews that one of the Reveres and I gave to The Canadian Press reporter earlier this week.

Bloggers surfing, sharing science in quest to understand pandemic threat
By HELEN BRANSWELL
2005-06-30 14:00:00

TORONTO (CP) - They religiously monitor Asian newspaper articles, devour World Health Organization reports, scan medical literature. They debate the principles that drive the evolution of influenza viruses and critique government preparations for a flu pandemic.

But they aren't virologists, microbiologists, epidemiologists or public health leaders. (Well, most of them aren't, anyway.) They are regular folk - housewives, writers, college instructors - who share an obsession over what they believe is the looming threat of a flu pandemic.

Meet the Internet's dedicated and growing community of flu bloggers.

Some blog to educate themselves. Some blog to inform others. Some blog in the hopes of spurring public officials to action.

"We're like a little tribe of hunter-gatherers and we're kind of scattered around looking for things to eat under rocks," explains Crawford Kilian, author of a blog entitled H5N1 and an instructor of communications at Capilano College in North Vancouver.

"And once in awhile we find something: 'Hey, get a load of this iguana.' And everyone takes a look. And then we go scattering off looking for more iguanas. And in the process, we kind of keep each other informed."

The community is tiny, but the number of hits the sites are getting is on the rise, perhaps signalling a burgeoning public awareness of the growing concern in the scientific community that the H5N1 strain could be poised to trigger the first pandemic of this century.

"The blogosphere is making these issues a little more permeable," Kilian says. "It's slowly spreading the news."

The blogger or bloggers who run a site called Effect Measure first seized upon avian influenza's potential to spark a pandemic - and the seemingly anemic response to that threat - as a metaphor for the state of the U.S. public health system.

"Here's a freight train coming down the tracks and nobody's doing anything about it," says one of the editors, who post from behind the alias "Revere."

"I wanted to sort of goad people. Get some action at the leadership level."

That blog bears the disclaimer that the editors are well-known public health scientists or practitioners who choose to obscure their identity for maximum freedom of expression. (The Revere quoted here is indeed a recognizable name.)

Melanie Mattson is the author of Just a Bump in the Beltway, a proudly left-of-centre political and public affairs blog with a strong interest in pandemic flu.

A self-employed writer from Falls Church, Va., Mattson is an avid amateur epidemiologist who has been following developments with H5N1 since 1997. That's when the bird virus set off scientific alarm bells by becoming the first known strain of avian flu to directly infect humans.

She scours the web for flu science, sharing finds with people she deems to be "rational actors" and eschewing those she feels are trying to use the subject to support fringe views.

"This is citizen journalism at its best. And also its worst," she says. Why worst? "Because there are the people out there who are saying it's a CIA conspiracy."

Mattson, the Reveres and the blogger behind The Next Hurrah this week launched a Flu Wiki, a resource guide that will evolve from entries written and edited by visitors to the site. The wiki (the term is based on wiki wiki, the Hawaiian word for quick or informal) has been averaging about 1,500 hits a day since it launched, with the average reader viewing about 15 pages of the text per visit.

In general, the flu blogs and discussion boards that they interact with contain a broad mix of up-to-the-minute news, science, opinion and advice. Effect Measure recently ran an item on how long different foodstuffs last, for those putting aside supplies on the assumption the food distribution network could be severely disrupted by a pandemic.

Other discussions relate to how or whether to try to put aside personal stockpiles of oseltamivir, a prescription antiviral drug that blunts the blow of human flu and is believed to be effective against H5N1 as well.

One frequent contributor, known in the flu cyberworld as CanadaSue, constructed a lengthy scenario - posted on the Flu Wiki - that details what life could be like in her hometown, Kingston, Ont., during a pandemic.

CanadaSue - Sue Smith, a homemaker and former nurse - thinks people need to start putting some thought into how they might deal with the hardships a pandemic could provoke.

"My position is that individuals need to be thinking about it themselves and thinking about what they're going to do in their individual circumstances. Yeah, that might be food in the basement. For some it might be Tamiflu," says Smith, who adds she's not a proponent of personal stockpiles of the drug.

"I'm trying to make the public, those who are interested - and frankly, not that many are yet - I'm just trying to get them interested in thinking: OK, how will this affect me? How will it affect my family? How will it affect my job?"

Mattson shares that view.

"I think that it's responsible for people to know that there is this threat lurking out there," she says.

"Trying to strike the balance in tone between saying 'My God, we're all going to die,' and saying 'This could be nothing, it could be something, probably you should know about it,' is the daily balancing act that I'm trying to walk."

Kilian too worries about balance. In his case, it's the balance between opinion and fact - and whether blog surfers know how to distinguish one from the other.

"Just because I'm out there, shovelling this information onto my blog does not mean that I know what the hell I'm doing or what I'm talking about," he admits.

"And yet because the information's there and the blog looks kind of tidy it acquires a sort of false aura of expert knowledge. And that in itself can be a real hazard. That can be a downside of the web and blogging in particular. And that is that just because you're out there and you're shooting your mouth off, people start treating you like a guru." CP Health, Media, Software, Politics

Some blogs which focus on pandemic influenza:

-Crawford Kilian's H5N1, http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/

-The Flu Wiki, http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?nMain.HomePage

-Effect Measure, http://effectmeasure.blogspot.com/

-Melanie Mattson's Just a Bump in the Beltway, http://www.node707.com/

-Epidemica, http://www.epidemi.ca/

-Avian Flu, http://avianflu.typepad.com/

Unarmed

This article in the new edition of The Nation is just terrific if you want to understand how we got into such horrible state of unpreparedness for a possible avian flu epidemic. The nut grafs are below, but read the whole thing.

Avian Flu: A State of Unreadiness

Mike Davis

Certainly the leading influenza researchers, from the first H5N1 outbreak in 1997, have been doing their utmost to alert medical colleagues worldwide to the urgent threat of avian flu, as well as outlining the immediate steps the Bush Administration and other governments needed to take. As befitted his position as "pope" of influenza researchers, Robert Webster of Saint Jude Hospital in Memphis tirelessly preached the same sermon: "If a pandemic happened today, hospital facilities would be overwhelmed and understaffed because many medical personnel would be afflicted with the disease. Vaccine production would be slow because many drug-company employees would also be victims. Critical community services would be immobilized. Reserves of existing vaccines, M2 inhibitors and NA inhibitors would be quickly depleted, leaving most people vulnerable to infection."

Webster stressed the particular urgency of increasing the production and stockpiling of the NA inhibitor Tamiflu. Because this strategic antiviral was "in woefully short supply"--it is made by Roche at a single factory in Switzerland--Webster and his colleagues underlined the need for resolute government action: "The cost of making the drugs, as opposed to the price the pharmaceutical companies charge consumers, would not be exorbitant. Such expenditure by governments would be a very worthwhile investment in the defense against this debilitating and often deadly virus." Failure to act would mean intense competition over the small inventory of life-saving Tamiflu. "Who should get these drugs?" Webster asked. "Healthcare workers and those in essential services, obviously, but who would identify those? There would not be nearly enough for those who needed them in the developed world, let alone the rest of the world's population."

Webster wasn't calling for miracles, just prudent action to insure an adequate antiviral stockpile. But for almost three years he and other influenza experts were ignored, as were those who argued more generally that "the best way to manage bioterrorism is to improve the management of existing public-health threats." The Bush Administration instead fast-tracked vaccination programs for smallpox and anthrax, based on fanciful scenarios that might have embarrassed Tom Clancy. In reality, the biodefense boom was designed to build support for the invasion of Iraq by sowing the fear that
Saddam Hussein might use germ warfare against the United States. In any event, Washington spent $1 billion expanding a smallpox vaccine stockpile that some experts claim was already quite sufficient. Hundreds of thousands of GIs were forced to undergo the vaccinations, but front-line health workers--the second tier of the smallpox campaign--largely boycotted the Administration's attempts to cajole "voluntary" participation.

In spite of this fiasco and millions of doses of unused vaccine, the Administration pressed ahead with the development of second-generation smallpox and anthrax vaccines, as well as vaccines for such exotic plagues as ebola fever; it continued to reject the "all hazards" strategy recommended by most public-health experts in favor of a so-called "siloed approach" that focused on a short list of possible bioweapons. In testimony before the House of Representatives, Tommy Thompson explained that while "private investment should drive the development of most medical products," only the government was in a position to develop those products that "everyone hopes...will never be needed" as a protection against "rare yet deadly threats." The government, in other words, was willing to spend lots of money on biological threats that were unlikely or farfetched but not on antivirals or new antibiotics for the diseases that were actually most menacing, like avian flu.

Link courtesy of Declan Butler at Connotea

No News IS News

While the rest of the country goes quietly about moving into their holiday weekend, we inside the beltway obsess, and the WashPo writes about it:

Only Vacancy Is in Supreme Court News

By Dana Milbank

Thursday, June 30, 2005; Page A04

This was to have been the busiest week of Sean Rushton's life. As director of the Committee for Justice, he was to have kicked off the right's fight for a conservative successor to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

But Rushton is standing down. He told his wife to go ahead with a deposit on the beach house in the Outer Banks. He sent his assistant off on a professional development conference. He's catching up on his e-mail. "Lot of solitaire, lot of tick-tack-toe," Rushton said yesterday from his quiet Pennsylvania Avenue office after circulating a news release calling a Supreme Court retirement "less likely" and suggesting that the right concentrate on lower courts.

What scenes of Washington politics would you like Dana Milbank to write about? E-mail your suggestions of people, places or events -- along with your name and hometown to [email protected].

How could this be? Yesterday was the day Rehnquist was absolutely, positively to have announced his retirement -- a fact made all the more certain by his not doing so on Monday or Tuesday. Journalists knew it. Administration sources knew it. The White House and scores of interest groups were preparing for it. The only one who didn't know Rehnquist was retiring, apparently, was Rehnquist himself.

The cagey chief justice, who has thyroid cancer, may yet announce his retirement at any moment. But with each passing hour, the doubts grow. Since Monday, the capital's conventional wisdom has executed a perfect 180, and the smart money now says Rehnquist (and Sandra Day O'Connor and the others) won't resign. But since nobody seems to know for certain except for Rehnquist, the wait continues. Instead of beginning an apocalyptic confirmation battle, Washington this week resembles a Samuel Beckett play.

"It's hell," said NBC News's Pete Williams, sitting in his cubicle in the Supreme Court press room -- waiting. Outside, at the bottom of the court steps, an NBC camera crew languishes as it has all week -- waiting, eating Doritos, reading the paper, talking to tourists. "You can't do a story saying nothing happened," Williams pointed out.

Funny, isn't that exactly what Milbank is doing?

Ritalin Needed

Mood of Anxiety Engulfs Afghans as Violence Rises

By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: June 30, 2005

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 29 - The loss of a military helicopter with 17 Americans aboard in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday comes at a time of growing insecurity here. For the first time since the United States overthrew the Taliban government three and a half years ago, Afghans say they are feeling uneasy about the future.

Violence has increased sharply in recent months, with a resurgent Taliban movement mounting daily attacks in southern Afghanistan, gangs kidnapping foreigners here in the capital and radical Islamists orchestrating violent demonstrations against the government and foreign-financed organizations.

The steady stream of violence has dealt a new blow to this still traumatized nation of 25 million. In dozens of interviews conducted in recent weeks around the country, Afghans voiced concern that things were not improving, and that the Taliban and other dangerous players were gaining strength.

An American Chinook helicopter that crashed on Tuesday was brought down by hostile fire as it was landing during combat in a mountainous border area, American military officials said Wednesday.

Afghans interviewed about the continuing violence also expressed increased dissatisfaction with their own government and the way the United States military was conducting its operations, and said they were suspicious of the Americans' long-term intentions.

"Three years on, the people are still hoping that things are going to work out, but they have become suspicious about why the Americans came, and why the Americans are treating the local people badly," said Jandad Spinghar, leader of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Nangarhar Province in the east, just across the Khyber Pass from Pakistan.

Poverty, joblessness, frustrated expectations and the culture of 25 years of war make for a volatile mix in which American military raids, shootings and imprisonments can inflame public opinion, many here say.

"Generally people are not against the Americans," Mr. Spinghar said. "But in areas where there are no human rights, where they do not have good relations and where there is bad treatment of villagers or prisoners, this will hand a free area to the Taliban. It's very important that the Americans understand how the Afghan people feel."

Reflecting the shifting popular mood, President Hamid Karzai has publicly criticized the behavior of American troops and called for closer cooperation when Afghan homes are raided.

The Taliban's spring offensive has sounded an alarm for the United States military and the Karzai government, both of which had said that the Taliban were largely defeated and that the nation was consolidating behind its first elected national leader.

"We were wrong," a senior Afghan government official acknowledged, saying of the Taliban, "It seems they were spending the time preparing." He insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject within the government.

Is it my imagination, or is Bushco having trouble focusing on things? This administration seems to have attention deficit disorder.

Share the Wealth

Spanish parliament passes gay marriage bill
Last Updated Thu, 30 Jun 2005 06:20:50 EDT
CBC News

Days after Canada's parliament passed same-sex marriage legislation, Spanish lawmakers have voted to allow gays and lesbians to legally marry.

The vote in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies was 187 in favour, 147 against and four abstentions.

The law would make Spain only the fourth country in the world to officially recognize same-sex marriage. The Netherlands and Belgium approved same-sex marriages in 2000 and 2003.

In Canada, the Liberals' controversial same-sex marriage legislation passed final reading in the House of Commons Monday. It is expected to become law before the end of July.

"We were not the first, but I am sure we will not be the last," Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero told the chamber. "After us will come many other countries, driven, ladies and gentlemen, by two unstoppable forces: freedom and equality."

"Freedom and equality," a worthy standard, indeed, but it scares the crap out of straight people. Except for Spanish, Belgian and Canadian straights.

Disclaimer: the author is boringly straight.

Unpopular

Bush's Iraq speech draws career-low TV audience
Wed Jun 29, 2005 07:50 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Bush's latest address to the nation, urging Americans to stand firm in Iraq, drew the smallest TV audience of his tenure, Nielsen Media Research reported on Wednesday.

Live coverage of Bush's half-hour speech on Tuesday night from the Ft. Bragg military base in North Carolina averaged 23 million viewers combined on four major U.S. broadcast networks and three leading cable news channels, Nielsen said.

Designed largely to bolster sagging public support for the persistently bloody conflict in Iraq, the speech fell 8.6 million viewers shy of Bush's previous low as president, his Aug. 9, 2001 address on stem cell research, which was carried on six networks.

Even Bush's last prime-time address, his April 28 speech on Social Security overhaul, drew more viewers: 32.7 million.

Bush garnered the biggest U.S. TV audience of his presidency -- 82 million viewers on nine networks -- when he addressed a joint session of Congress nine days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

By comparison, his May 1, 2003, speech from the deck of an aircraft carrier declaring an end to major combat operations in Iraq averaged 48.4 million viewers.

Television viewing levels in general drop off during the summer months, and the second most-watched telecast on Tuesday night was a repeat edition of a "48 Hours Mystery" on CBS, which averaged just 7.4 million viewers.

CBS also accounted for the biggest share of Bush's audience on Tuesday night, with more than 5.5 million tuning in to the Viacom Inc.-owned network to watch the president.

But No. 2 NBC, which ran a full 30 minutes of post-speech analysis, led the networks in that half hour with nearly 5.3 million viewers. Its rivals switched back to entertainment programming for most of that half hour and drew smaller audiences.

Three of the major broadcast networks -- CBS, NBC and Fox -- did not decide until the day of the speech to carry it. ABC announced on Monday that it would cover the address.

I'm guessing that you were either a Bush partisan or a policy geek to have watched it. I don't know anyone who did. Except me.

Sound of Silence

Troops' Silence at Fort Bragg Starts a Debate All Its Own

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: June 30, 2005
New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 29 - So what happened to the applause?

When President Bush visits military bases, he invariably receives a foot-stomping, loud ovation at every applause line. At bases like Fort Bragg - the backdrop for his Tuesday night speech on Iraq - the clapping is often interspersed with calls of "Hoo-ah," the military's all-purpose, spirited response to, well, almost anything.

So the silence during his speech was more than a little noticeable, both on television and in the hall. On Wednesday, as Mr. Bush's repeated use of the imagery of the Sept. 11 attacks drew bitter criticism from Congressional Democrats, there was a parallel debate under way about whether the troops sat on their hands because they were not impressed, or because they thought that was their orders.

Capt. Tom Earnhardt, a public affairs officer at Fort Bragg who participated in the planning for the president's trip, said that from the first meetings with White House officials there was agreement that a hall full of wildly cheering troops would not create the right atmosphere for a speech devoted to policy and strategy.

"The guy from White House advance, during the initial meetings, said, 'Be careful not to let this become a pep rally,' " Captain Earnhardt recalled in a telephone interview. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, confirmed that account.

As the message drifted down to commanders, it appears that it may have gained an interpretation beyond what the administration's image-makers had in mind. "This is a very disciplined environment," said Captain Earnhardt, "and some guys may have taken it a bit far," leaving the troops hesitant to applaud.

Honestly, this is too much spin even for me. I've got relatives in that part of the world (trust me, Fort Bragg is a world unto itself) and if a speaker says something they agree with, they aren't going to sit on their hands. And you would think that someone that the media tells us is oh so popular with the troops would have them jumping out of their seats from the word go.

I almost feel sorry for the poor Captain. He's clearly trying to put a good face on a situation that is, to be blunt, a PR disaster. The White House is very quickly losing control over a world that can't be spun away just because the media says so. I'm not even sure the drones at Fox News are going to believe this. Let's hope the Captain doesn't find himself tranfered to lovely Kabul.

In some ways, I'm glad about this public meltdown. In a perfect world, Bush should already have none after his last "press conference" and debate performances, but since this isn't a perfect world, I'll take the following senario instead:

This speech will destroy what *little* credibility this Administration and their paid sychophants in the media have left after 5 years of non stop BS and we can finally get something resembling an honest debate going before midterm elections rear their ugly heads.

Granted, there is still 30-40% of the public that still believes Bush and the Neo-Cons, but they probably also believe in the tooth fairy and Adam Smith's "fair and balanced" invisible hand of the market place. Oye

I just can't imagine what might have caused all of those Patriotic G.I. Joes and Janes to have sat on their hands. Oh yeah, maybe this...

With Iraq once more atop the political agenda, the Senate on Wednesday gave hasty approval to an additional $1.5 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, to cover a budget gap caused in part by unexpected demands for health care by returning Iraqi veterans. The administration has reversed itself, and now plans to seek emergency money from both the House and the Senate. Before the Senate voted unanimously to raise the spending for health care, the head of the veterans administration returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to tell House members that, contrary to his testimony the previous day, the agency needs emergency financing for this year and the administration will be submitting a request.

Oh yeah.... to paraphrase what a famous American once said... "Reality is a stubborn thing."

Wiki Open Thread

What DVDs are you renting this weekend? Got Planz for the holiday? Cookout in the works?

Check out the Flu Wiki, which is developing an enthusiastic community of contributors, it rocks. If you haven't read CanadaSue yet, you are behind on your Internets. This is long and demanding reading, but it might be the most important thing you read this year. I read it today, stunned by the thoughtful creativity of the Flu Wiki community. She's amazing, but you are going to need time to read her whole imagined scenario. She's worth it. This is stunning work.

As the publisher and one of the editors of the wiki, I can tell you in all humility that we don't have this thing completely worked out yet, but we are learning with the community. There are all kinds of edges and dimensions to discover with this new tool, and we are learning and growing (and making mistakes) as we go. Please be patient, and we'll extend the same to you. We are doing this together and that's the point. We're going to survive H5N1 together, too. Wiki is a community tool and not always a wieldy one. Hmm, just like community. Dem, Revere and I are nearly tied to our computers as we learn how to be editors who have to adjust on the fly.

I've been more sick than not since Sunday, so I can't promise you when my first article will go up, it's been sitting on my task bar since last Saturday but I've been feeling too shitty to do anything with the draft. Maybe tomorrow. Visit for the other contributers and be one. It'll take you a little time clicking around the various features of the site to find the things you want, there is a lot there in content, and in opportunities for contributing. I'm still learning the way around myself, but this is a powerful tool and worth the time.

Some of the finest science writers on the planet have already shown up with content, if you want to be a reader. If you want to be a contributor, think about what fine company you'll be in.

The Canadian Press will have an article about us next week. I'll put up a link when it is posted.

If you read Flu Wiki, you are ahead of the curve. H5N1 might be phhhthtt. I certainly hope so. But what if it isn't?

Army of One

Army Recruiting Improves in June

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 29, 2005

Filed at 4:49 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army has exceeded its recruiting goal for June after four months of shortfalls, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

Still, the service is far behind its annual goal of 80,000 recruits.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a town-hall meeting of Pentagon personnel that the recruiting picture had improved.

''I will tell you that, for the month of June, United States Army active recruiting is over 100 percent of its goal, which is a turnaround from where they've been in the last several months,'' he said. ''So there's a bit of good news in here, and we'll see how it works out the rest of the year.''

Pentagon officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the Army has not formally announced its numbers, said the Army Reserve also met its recruiting goal in June.

The Army's goal for its active-duty force June was 5,650 recruits; so far, more than 6,150 signed up, the officials said, citing preliminary statistics from recruiting stations.

The Army Reserve hoped to sign up 3,610; it has barely exceeded that goal, the officials said.

There were no figures available for the Army National Guard, which is also well behind its annual goal.

The active-duty Army is still 7,800 recruits behind its year-to-date goal. The service hoped to recruit 80,000 into its ranks between Oct. 1, 2004, and this Sept. 30.

The Army also missed its monthly targets in April, March and February. Each month was worse than the one before. In February it fell 27 percent short; in March the gap was 31 percent, and in April it was 42 percent.

In May, the Army fell about 25 percent short of its target of signing up 6,700 recruits. The gap would have been even wider but for the fact that the target was lowered by 1,350. The June target was not lowered, officials said.

The Army Reserve is more than 2,350 behind its year-to-date goal. Reserve forces throughout the military have been missing recruiting goals.

Pentagon officials attributed the increase in recruits to the end of the school year. The summer months are typically when the services draw the most interest. The higher goals in the coming month reflect that.

The media still hasn't announced the casualty total from yesterday's chopper shoot-down. A couple of mass casualty situations like that will be enough to knock a hole in recruiting.

Never make them think

This is a rule I've learned as a tech writer. And it applies almost everywhere except in puzzles.

Think about the conclusion that you want the other person to reach, and state it directly. Don't give them the information and make them draw the obvious conclusion. Sounds obvious, but so often people expect the listener to make a tiny jump of logic. And the listener often doesn't do it.

Wrong: "Pressing the red button stops the machine."
Right: "Press the red button to stop the machine."
Even better: "To stop the machine, press the red button."

I've written things both ways and when I used the wrong version, taken tech support calls along the lines of "how do I stop the machine?" Yes, there are people who don't make the jump. No, they aren't stupid, not all of them. They have other things on their minds. They have a job to do, and reading the manual isn't the job. If I were writing a novel or an essay, I might include a thought-provoking item, a kind of puzzle, in order to bring the reader to a deeper understanding or just amuse the reader. In a manual, if I make my reader think I have screwed up. Writing without expecting the reader to think is harder than it sounds. Much harder.

Wrong: "I'd like the salt, please."
Right: "Please pass the salt."

In the first one, I'm informing you of my state of mind - desire for salt - and expecting you to make the tiny logical jump - I want you to pass the salt. In the second, I'm not expecting you to think. This example is no big deal - except that I've seen families get into fights that could have been prevented just that easily.

There are bigger examples. During the 2004 Presidential campaign, reversing tax cuts was a big issue for the Democrats. They expected the voters to understand that tax cuts for one group must be made up by tax increases on another, cuts in spending, or deficits. So the tax cuts are bad. Wrong. Tax cuts feel good. Tax cuts ARE good - the consequences may not be worth it but the cut itself is good. A tax cut is always a good thing. The tax cuts under discussion are part of a disasterous fiscal policy, and there is no way to include huge tax cuts in a responsible budget at this time. If I go home tonight and find a Ferrari in my driveway, a gift from my wife, the Ferrari is a fabulous wonderful thing - but I will not be happy, because of the financial consequences. Do I hate the Ferrari? Hell no. I hate the payments, the insurance, the maintainance. Love the car. What the Democrats were really against wasn't the tax cuts, but the consequences of the tax cuts. They expected voters to think and make the tiny logical jump. They said they were against the tax cuts - are you against tax cuts? Do you like taxes? You think about it and you understand it's a little more complicated than that, but some percentage isn't going to think about it. Some percentage of the voters was entirely in agreement with the Democratic position and voted against them because the Democrats expected them to think and they didn't. The exact same policy, described in terms of debt, of middle-class tax hikes (yep, those are in the works, in the form of reduced and eliminated deductions) of cut programs, might have made a difference.

Cross posted from my own blog Exceive

Fairy Tales

World War III

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; 12:24 PM

President Bush last night offered no new evidence to dissuade the growing majorities of Americans who believe that the United States is bogged down in Iraq, that the war was a mistake in the first place, and that he has no clear plan to bring troops home.

His prime-time speech did, however, contain a bold rhetorical shift. The president who took his country to war in Iraq on account of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, then recast the invasion as a pro-democracy move, is now arguing that Iraq is ground zero for World War III, the battle against terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001.

And having failed to capture or kill the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the president who has been notoriously averse to even mentioning his name out loud last night actually quoted Osama bin Laden in support of the speech's central argument.

"Hear the words of Osama bin Laden," Bush said: " 'This Third World War is raging' in Iraq."

Aside from Bush's repeated invocation of Sept. 11, there was no looking back in his speech, and certainly no admission of error. No acknowledgement that his fixation on Iraq may have let bin Laden get away, or that his own acts created the conditions in Iraq in which terrorists and their supporters are flourishing.

There was also no talk of the unfound weapons of mass destruction, or of the growing credibility gap fueled in part by the Downing Street memos, which suggest that Bush misled the public about Iraq in the run-up to a war that he craved.

And in spite of all the clamoring, there was no exit strategy. Although press secretary Scott McClellan had promised that Bush would "talk in a very specific way about the way forward," the only forward-looking talk was incredibly vague.

"We're building up Iraqi security forces as quickly as possible," Bush said. "We will stay in Iraq as long as we are needed, and not a day longer."

Bush was greeted with stony, untelegenic silence by the troops the White House had gathered at Ft. Bragg to serve as his audience. There was only one outburst of applause, apparently provoked by a member of Bush's own advance team.

I find Froomkin refreshing. He calls it like it is without all of the fudging language the WaPo ed page uses.

In a Nutshell

From WaPo's Joel Achenbabach's Achenblog:

Iraq: A Schedule Instead of a Battle Plan

The other day at a social event I found myself talking to an Administration official about the war. He didn't mention anything about combat, or anything that might be defined as "military action." No, he talked about The Schedule. We have to keep to the schedule, he said. There's a schedule that's been in place for transferring sovereignty, holding elections, and, next up, writing a constitution. We have a schedule instead of a battle plan.

This is a political war now. Success or failure depends on political events in Iraq and in the United States. Never has it been more obvious that war is an extension of politics by other means. The insurgents are betting the Americans will go wobbly. Bush says he, for one, won't flinch, and that is what presidents have to say in a situation like this. He can't very well say, "Hell's bells, have I made a hash out of this one! This is one coyote-ugly war! Last man out of Iraq, turn off the lights!"

Here's what the president did say: "So our strategy going forward has both a military track and a political track." Sophisticated observers should email me with an explanation of what the military track is, exactly. Strategic leafletting? Or are we going to root out the insurgents from their rat-holes one by one? Doesn't look like there are a lot of chances for a general to point to a map and say, "Right here, we'll invade at dawn." Or: "Here, we'll hit them with the heavy armor." Instead we've got the most highly trained fighting force in the world trying to play urban Whack-a-Mole. And there's an apparently endless number of moles.

It's slightly worrisome when a president in wartime starts talking like a Political Science professor:

"The assembly plans to expand its constitutional drafting committee to include more Sunni Arabs. Many Sunnis who opposed the January elections are now taking part in the democratic process, and that is essential to Iraq's future," Bush said last night. So perhaps the 82nd Airborne can do something to ensure that the committee assignments are properly distributed. Let the leafletting begin!

Even newspaper bloggers get snarky.

Spiffy

WashPo's In the Loop columnist Al Kamen is alway entertaining and sometimes wise on the kooky folkways of "inside the beltway" people. He has a funny squib in this morning's column, with photo (on the link.)

Watch Out, Tiger -- Here Comes Rehnquist

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist did not retire on Monday when the court finished its term. He looked pretty good, especially in that snappy Nike cap, complete with the swoosh. This led to speculation he may be staying on to work out a product-endorsement deal with the sportswear giant. Something like "Lids for All Ages," or maybe "You're Never Too Old for Nike"?

But the smart money is still solid that Rehnquist will retire soon, both to give the administration a chance to fill the seat and to have the court at full strength by October and through the next term.

More Mistakes

Arrested Development

By ARLIE HOCHSCHILD
Published: June 29, 2005

Berkeley, Calif.

Under international law, the line between childhood and maturity is 18. In communications with Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the Pentagon has lowered the cutoff to 16. For this reason among others, we don't know exactly how many Iraqi children are in American custody. But before the transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority to an Iraqi interim government a year ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported registering 107 detainees under 18 during visits to six prisons controlled by coalition troops. Some detainees were as young as 8.

Since that time, Human Rights Watch reports that the number has risen. The figures from Afghanistan are still more alarming: the journalist Seymour Hersh wrote last month in the British newspaper The Guardian that a memo addressed to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shortly after the 2001 invasion reported "800-900 Pakistani boys 13-15 years of age in custody."

Juvenile detainees in American facilities like Abu Ghraib and Bagram Air Base have been subject to the same mistreatment as adults. The International Red Cross, Amnesty International and the Pentagon itself have gathered substantial testimony of torture of children, bolstered by accounts from soldiers who witnessed or participated in the abuse.

According to Amnesty International, 13-year-old Mohammed Ismail Agha was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2002 and detained without charge or trial for over a year, first at Bagram and then at Guantánamo Bay. He was held in solitary confinement and subjected to sleep deprivation. "Whenever I started to fall asleep, they would kick at my door and yell at me to wake up," he told an Amnesty researcher. "They made me stand partway, with my knees bent, for one or two hours."

A Canadian, Omar Khadr, was 15 in 2002 when he was captured in Afghanistan and interned at Guantánamo. For 2½ years, he was allowed no contact with a lawyer or with his family. Seventeen-year-old Akhtar Mohammed told Amnesty that he was kept in solitary confinement in a shipping container for eight days in Afghanistan in January 2002.

A Pentagon investigation last year by Maj. Gen. George Fay reported that in January 2004, a leashed but unmuzzled military guard dog was allowed into a cell holding two children. The intention was for the dog to " 'go nuts on the kids,' barking and scaring them." The children were screaming and the smaller one tried to hide behind the larger, the report said, as a soldier allowed the dog to get within about one foot of them. A girl named Juda Hafez Ahmad told Amnesty International that when she was held in Abu Ghraib she "saw one of the guards allow his dog to bite a 14-year-old boy on the leg."

Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, formerly in charge of Abu Ghraib, told Maj. General Fay about visiting a weeping 11-year-old detainee in the prison's notorious Cellblock 1B, which housed prisoners designated high risk. "He told me he was almost 12," General Karpinski recalled, and that "he really wanted to see his mother, could he please call his mother."

Children like this 11 year old held at Abu Ghraib have been denied the right to see their parents, a lawyer, or anyone else. They were not told why they were detained, let alone for how long. A Pentagon spokesman told Mr. Hersh that juveniles received some special care, but added, "Age is not a determining factor in detention." The United States has found, the spokesman said, that "age does not necessarily diminish threat potential."

It's true that some of these children may have picked up a stone or a gun. But coalition intelligence officers told the Red Cross that 70 percent to 90 percent of detainees in Iraq are eventually found innocent and released. Many innocent children are swept up with their parents in chaotic nighttime dragnets based on tips from unreliable informants. "We know of children under 15," Clarisa Bencomo of Human Rights Watch told me, " held for over a year at Guantánamo Bay, whom the government later said were not security risks." Even if a child is found guilty, he or she should be treated humanely, rather than tortured or "rendered," as the C.I.A. puts it, to third parties that torture.

AMBASSADOR MILLER is right. Children matter. To really place them "at the center" of our human rights concerns, the United States should hasten to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, from which only we and Somalia abstain. And if the Pentagon must detain children, it should do so in separate facilities, with access to family, and under humane conditions that include the offer of rehabilitation and education.

We sweep entire families up in midnite raids and we are wondering how to detain the children? Perhaps we shouldn't be detaining them at all. Maybe this entire strategy needs to be rethought. After all, it doesn't seem to be working, does it?

Blame Shifting

President Bush's Speech About Iraq
Published: June 29, 2005

President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush's optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come. There are not enough American soldiers to carry out the job they have been sent to do, yet the strain of maintaining even this inadequate force is taking a terrible toll on the ability of the United States to defend its security on other fronts around the world.

We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.

Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq.

Given the way this war was planned and executed, the president does not have any good options available, and if American forces were withdrawn, Iraq would probably sink into a civil war that would create large stretches of no man's land where private militias and stateless terrorists could operate with impunity. But if Mr. Bush is intent on staying the course, it will take years before the Iraqi government and its military are able to stand on their own. Most important of all - despite his lofty assurance last night that in the end the insurgents "cannot stop the advance of freedom" - all those years of effort and suffering could still end with the Iraqis turning on each other, or deciding that the American troops were the ultimate enemy after all. The critical challenge is to gauge, with a clear head, exactly when and if the tipping point arrives and the American presence is only making a terrible situation worse.
....
Pressure from the Bush administration for the government to do better has increased since the State Department took control of Iraq policy from the Pentagon. But there is much more to do, and the president needed to show the American people that he is not giving the Iraqi politicians a blank check to fritter away their opportunities.

Listening to Mr. Bush offer the usual emotional rhetoric about the advance of freedom and the sacrifice of American soldiers, our thoughts went back to some of the letters we received in anticipation of the speech. One was from the brother of a fallen Marine, who said he did not want Mr. Bush to say the war should continue in order to keep faith with the men and women who have died fighting it. "We do not need more justifications for the war. We need an effective strategy to win it," he wrote. Another letter came from an opponent of the invasion who urged the American left to "get over its anger over President Bush's catastrophic blunder" and start trying to figure out how to win the conflict that exists.

Warfighting really is hard work and shouldn't be entered into lightly. Bushco, unfortunately, thinks that it is some sort of game, pieces that you move around on a board. Meeting with the widows and family members is really hard work for someone who has no empathy and sent their family member into war for no reason that we've heard of yet.

By the way, NYT letter writer, it is not my job, nor any other commentater's, to figure out how to win this war. Those of us who counseled against it in the first place were told that we were traitors. Bush got us into this mess, it is up to him and his minions to figure out how to get us out. The fact that he's made a mess of it is a judgement on him, not on us.

In Country

Chris Allbritton is Back to Iraq 3.0" as an independent journalist. He writes:

News flash: Iraq is a disaster. I've been back one day, and the airport road was the worst I've ever seen it. We had to go around a fire-fight between mujahideen and Americans while Iraqi forces sat in the shade of date palms on the side of the road, their rifles resting across their laps. My driver pointed to a group of men in a white pickup next to me. “They are mujahideen,” he said. “They are watching the Americans.” Indeed, they were, and so intently that they paid no attention to me in the car next to them. We detoured around two possible car bombs that had been cordoned off while Iraqis cautiously approached.

Rumsfeld's assessment of “good progress” on the constitution is not accurate, as the committee to draw it up still hasn't completely agreed on how the Sunnis will take part.

When I was in Ramadi, I found the morale to be lower than expected. It wasn't rock-bottom among the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, but it wasn't great. Most of the ones I talked to weren't confident they were doing anything worthwhile, and were instead focused on getting home alive. If a few Iraqis had to die to make that happen, well, war is hell.

I'm not sure who's winning this war, the Americans or the insurgents. But I know who is losing it: the Iraqi people. Those bumps in the road are their graves.

Around the Net

The Philly Daily News' Will Bunch, blogging at "Attytood," asks the question:

Why is Bush continuing to mention 9/11 in his speeches about Iraq? Well, because he learned in 2003 that it works. Lets see if the talking heads call him on this hideous slice of baloney this time around.

Um, Will? Have you lost your freakin' mind?

Media Connections

Suburban Guerrilla has been on a real tear the last 48 hours or so. I wanted to make a quick mention of a post that has scrolled off of her front page.

Susie found a very interesting study on the corporate media that really connects the dots on exactly how truely corporate the media really has become.

We can continue to have endless round robin discussions on how to frame messages and the like, but so long as the primary organs of information are this tightly meshed together, I seriously doubt things will change that much.

Or look at it this way.... Bush's popularity ratings right now rank slightly above the percentage of the population who thought Catwoman was worth paying full ticket price to see in the theatre, yet the media continues to treat him like he walks on water and can do no wrong (almost like Reagan except without the funny Hollywood stories & the hair gell). Even most hard core Conservatives will admit that Iraq really isn't going as well as they would like and some will even tell you, quietly behind closed doors so their neighbors won't hear, that there probably weren't ever WMD's.

The media's not going to change overnight, but they did notice the huge stink people raised the last time they tried to publicly ram more media consolidation down our throats. Now is the time to press them and to get them to focus on the important issues and not bury them on page A 12 behind shark attacks and lost Boy Scouts.

The Speech

One of his weakest speeches. He accomplished nothing which he needed to do: no sense that there is a strategy, a metric, a sense of there being any correction to plan which is clearly not working. He asserts as fact many things which are in dispute. There was nothing new. He's out of ideas.

Your thoughts?

Is it worth it?

Bush to acknowledge doubts in Iraq strategy

Tue Jun 28, 2005 05:16 PM ET
By Steve Holland

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (Reuters) - In a nationally televised speech, President Bush will acknowledge doubts about his Iraq war strategy but argue that it is worth it a year after the much-trumpeted U.S. transfer of power to Iraqis gave way to an endless stream of death.

"We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America's resolve," Bush planned to say in an 8 p.m. (0000 GMT) speech. "We are fighting against men with blind hatred, and armed with lethal weapons, who are capable of any atrocity."

No significant shift in course was expected from Bush, whose approval ratings have fallen to the lowest levels of his presidency in part because of growing fears about Iraq.

Instead, he planned to plead for patience, insisting that U.S. troops will stay in Iraq until sufficient number of Iraqi military units are trained to defend against an insurgency that on Tuesday assassinated a prominent member of the Iraqi parliament and killed two U.S. soldiers.

"Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? It is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country," Bush planned to say.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll found most Americans did not believe the administration's assertions of impressive gains against the insurgency. But a clear majority said they were willing to keep U.S. forces there for an extended time to stabilize the country.

The White House said Bush will acknowledge the tough fighting and suicide bombings in Iraq but will also explain "why the terrorists are failing."

"The terrorists can kill the innocent -- but they cannot stop the advance of freedom," Bush will say.

He will cite the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as a reason for staying the course. No connection between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11 attacks was ever established, but the White House now calls Iraq the central front in the war on terrorism in part because the insurgency is led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has sworn allegiance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of Sept. 11, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden," Bush will say.

Worth it? Worth breaking our armed forces? Worth trashing our allies? Worth impoverishing our nation? Worth believing every lie? Worth what?

No Getting Away

Great. Just what I don't need.

Wilderness connection
# Wireless service has come to California campgrounds, for those who don't really want to get away.

By David Colker, Times Staff Writer

Ah, wilderness: clean air, mountain vistas, star-filled sky and broadband Internet access with e-mail, music downloads, news feeds, stock tickers, sports updates, streaming radio, movie trailers, poker sites, celebrity gossip and information on just about everything. You can even read all about the nature around you in lieu of experiencing it.

Yes, all the wonders of the Internet are now — or will soon be — available at a state campground near you. Last winter, the California Department of Parks and Recreation partnered with San Antonio-based communications giant SBC to offer wireless Internet access at 59 state-owned campgrounds. SBC has already made similar connections at state parks in Michigan.

Because it is such a novel concept — and one so seemingly at odds with the camping experience — I had to see for myself how it works. The concession agreement between the parks department and SBC was widely touted with initial reports saying that the entire installation would be complete by the end of this month. So far, the service, formally called SBC FreedomLink Service, has been installed in 11 camps, and state officials say it will be the end of the summer by the time they're completed.

The system has been designed to work like the wireless (WiFi) hotspots in coffee shops, hotel lobbies and airports, ensuring that laptop-toting Internet fiends never need go long without an online fix.

The first state campground to go digital was the hugely popular, vast site at San Elijo State Beach that got the service Jan. 19. The park, located off S. Coast Highway 101 near Cardiff-by-the-Sea, sits on bluffs above a narrow stretch of beach. For purists who hate the idea of the digital world encroaching on this sliver of surf and sand, fear not: The SBC FreedomLink Service here is hardly enticing because of its severe technology limitations.

"We've had lots of people asking about it," said Dave Riley, 21, who works at the park. But Riley, a student majoring in recreation administration at San Diego State University, said the WiFi service was elusive at best. "I'm not sure anybody has actually been able to hook up to it," he said.

A ranger at San Elijo said she'd also gotten a lot of inquiries since the system was installed, but she had not heard of anyone successfully getting online in the park, leading her to speculate that the system might already be broken.

Shirley Claire is one of the few camp dwellers who has actually used the system, and she has some advice: "Get as close to the camp store as you can." Claire, 52, has been living at San Elijo in her RV for several weeks and is a park host.

Her determination to go online led her to briefly park in one of the 20-minute spaces in front of the camp store, near the small antenna that transmits the WiFi.

"I got a signal!" she said triumphantly.

I found that the best reception seemed to be in the coin-operated laundry room next to the store. Indeed, with my laptop perched on a folding table, I could Web surf while watching actual surfers through the windows.

I'm going camping this summer in no small part to get away from the keyboard and to try to learn to write long hand again (my handwriting, never very legible, has really gone downhill now that I'm keyboard only) as well as getting away from the schedule I've established for myself here. Sometimes you just gotta shake things up a bit to get re-created. Please, please, Province of Ontario, please don't WiFi your parks until after I'm gone.

Time to Go

Command Responsibility

By Andrew J. Bacevich

Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Page A15

Who "lost" Iraq? With blame for the unhappy course of events since U.S. forces occupied Baghdad in April 2003 routinely heaped on civilian officials, the military itself has gotten a pass. In fact, senior U.S. commanders have botched the war. Acknowledging that fact is an essential first step toward improving the quality of U.S. generalship.

For this reason, reported plans to promote Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez deserve particular attention. According to media reports, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld intends to nominate Sanchez for a fourth star. But the general does not merit promotion; he can best serve his country by retiring forthwith.
....
When Sanchez assumed command of U.S. and coalition ground forces in Iraq in June 2003, the insurgency was barely in its infancy. When he left Iraq a year later, it was raging all but out of control. By any measure -- estimated number of enemy fighters, frequency of attacks, Iraqi civilian casualties and U.S. troop losses sustained -- conditions in Iraq worsened appreciably during Sanchez's tenure in command. His task was to provide security; his efforts produced chaos.

Historians will remember Sanchez as the William Westmoreland of the Iraq war -- the general who misunderstood the nature of the conflict he faced and thereby played into the enemy's hands. Vowing in December 2003 to use "whatever combat power is necessary to win," Sanchez echoed promises of victory made by Westmoreland in Saigon a generation earlier. "That's what America expects of me," Sanchez declared, "and that's what I'm going to accomplish."

But victory is precisely what he did not accomplish. Combat power as such was never the answer. Indeed, as with Westmoreland, whose doctrine of search-and-destroy committed U.S. forces to an unwinnable war of attrition, Sanchez fought his war in ways that turned out to be monumentally wrongheaded. His kick-down-the-door tactics served only to harden resistance to the U.S. occupation. Rather than winning Iraqi hearts and minds, he alienated them.

Critics fault the Bush administration for not having provided U.S. commanders with enough "boots on the ground." This, they say, accounts for the current stalemate. Such an interpretation conforms nicely to the reigning demands of political correctness, absolving the military of any responsibility for its current predicament. But it will not wash. The principal defect of the war effort is not that field commanders have lacked sufficient troops. The real problem is that they -- and Sanchez in particular -- have never devised an effective strategy.

In Baghdad this month, the senior U.S. military spokesman announced that it was time "to concede that . . . this insurgency is not going to be settled . . . through military options or military operations," tacitly acknowledging that the exertions of the past two years had failed. In that acknowledgment lies the definitive judgment of what Sanchez -- although not he alone -- has wrought.

There is no doubt that Sanchez, an honorable man, did his best under extraordinarily trying circumstances. But his best wasn't good enough. He did not get the job done. It's time to recognize that and to make way for leaders who can. American soldiers deserve no less.

In fact, it has been stunning how incompetent all of the senior leadership has been, across the board.

Downhill All the Way

Britain's The Independent illustrates Patrick Cockburn's article on the state of Iraq today with this handy reference chart. Keep it in front of you while you listen to Bush try to change the subject tonight.

Then and now

Average daily attacks by insurgents

Pre-war March 2003: 0

Handover June 2004: 45

Now: 70

Analysis:

Figures should be viewed with caution because US military often does not record attacks if there are no American casualties.

Total number of coalition troops killed

Pre-war March 2003: 0

Handover June 2004: 982

Now: 1,930

Analysis:

Number of US troops killed increased sharply during Fallujah fighting in April and November 2004.

Iraqi civilians killed

Pre-war March 2003: n/a

Handover June 2004: 10,000

Now: 60,800 (includes 23,000 crime-related deaths)

Analysis:

Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths have varied widely because the US military does not count them.

Electricity supply (megawatts generated)

Pre-war March 2003: 3,958

Handover June 2004: 4,293

Now: 4,035

Analysis:

Coalition is way behind its goal of providing 6,000 megawatts by July 2004. Most Iraqis do not have a reliable electricity supply.

Unemployed

Pre-war March 2003: n/a

Handover June 2004: 40%

Now: 40%

Analysis:

More than a third of young people are unemployed, a cause for social unrest. Many security men stay home, except on payday.

Telephones

Pre-war March 2003: 833,000 (landlines only)

Handover June 2004: 1.2m (includes mobiles)

Now: 3.1m

Analysis:

Landlines are extremely unreliable and mobile phone system could be improved.

Primary school access

Pre-war March 2003: 3.6m

Handover June 2004: 4.3m

Now: n/a

Analysis:

83 per cent of boys and 79 per cent of girls in primary schools. But figures mask declining literacy and failure rate.

Oil production (barrels a day)

Pre-war March 2003: 2.5m

Handover June 2004: 2.29m

Now: 2.20m

Analysis:

Sustainability of Iraqi oilfields has been jeopardised to boost output. Oil facilities regularly targeted by insurgents.

Tony's Troubles

via Juan Cole, who interprets the data the same way I do. This is going to be a terrible political problem for Tony Blair:

Bush warns Blair he must boost UK forces

BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR

BRITAIN is coming under sustained pressure from American military chiefs to keep thousands of troops in Iraq - while going ahead with plans to boost the front line against a return to "civil war" in Afghanistan.

Tony Blair was warned that war-torn Iraq remains on the brink of disaster - more than two years after the removal of Saddam Hussein - during his summit with President Bush in Washington earlier this month.

Scotland on Sunday revealed last month that Blair is preparing to rush thousands more British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war, amid warnings the coalition faces a "complete strategic failure" in the effort to rebuild the nation.

The grim prognosis was underlined last night by Afghanistan's defence minister, who warned that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was regrouping and planned to bring Iraq-style bloodshed to the country.

Rahim Wardak warned of the threat as the Taliban said they had captured 11 Afghan troops, a senior policeman and a district chief in a district of Kandahar where US and Afghan forces staged an anti-guerrilla operation just days earlier.

Britain's military chief in Kabul last week confirmed that the 8,000-strong UK presence in Iraq would be scaled down to enable more troops to be diverted to the struggle against a resurgent Taliban.

But despite fears that the security situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating, the Americans have now launched a determined rearguard action to ensure Iraq does not suffer from a switch in Britain's military focus.

"The Prime Minister was given a pretty depressing run-down of the prognosis for Iraq while he was in Washington," one senior Ministry of Defence source said last night. "The Americans are pushing for at least a maintenance of the troop numbers we have there now. Our latest intention is to reduce by at least half the number of our troops in Iraq within a year.

"It's difficult to see how we can square that circle."

The appeal to Blair confirms Washington's growing unease about the security of Iraq. Bush is coming under increasing pressure at home to present an "exit strategy" for American troop from Iraq.

Last night it was revealed that American officials have held secret face-to-face talks with Iraqi insurgents in a bid to diffuse the violent opposition in the country.

The negotiations are aimed at isolating the foreign Islamic militants who have flooded the country to wage a holy war against the US.

But the suggestion that Britain should extend its overseas military commitments still further emerged as the government was warned that more than a third of the military was not ready to go on active operations.

A disturbing National Audit Office report warned of potential crisis because so many troops are deployed in operations overseas. But planners at the UK military's Northolt headquarters have drawn up emergency plans to send up to 5,500 troops to Afghanistan to help avert a descent into more widespread bloodshed.

The British public grows more anti-war as time goes on. Blair is going to have a very hard time holding a government if he accedes to Bush's demands. This was all predictable. I've been waiting for weeks for this story to surface.

Waiting for the SCOTUS

Anticipation of a Vacancy, but Silence Says Not Yet

By TODD S. PURDUM
Published: June 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, June 27 - Article III of the Constitution specifies that justices of the Supreme Court "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour," and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist's was punctilious on Monday as he adjourned the court for the summer. He kidded his colleagues about a raft of dissents. He thanked court employees for "outstanding work and dedication to duty."

But he said not a word - at least in public - about one of the day's most anticipated potential decisions: whether he plans to be on the bench when the court reconvenes on the first Monday in October.

That left the armies of interest groups poised for a thunderous fight over Chief Justice Rehnquist's successor, the regiment of newscasters bivouacked on the steps of the Supreme Court anticipating a vacancy, and the hundreds of people who began lining up at 1 a.m. hoping for a front-row seat to history hearing only the sound of silence.

Has Chief Justice Rehnquist, 80 and ill with thyroid cancer, already resigned in a secret letter to President Bush? Will he step down later this week? Will he take his time and mull over a decision this summer? If anyone in Washington knew, no one was saying.

"I'm not going to go down that road," said the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, when asked if the White House had been notified of any vacancy. "I wouldn't read anything into it one way or the other. If, obviously, there is something to announce, I imagine it would come out of the Supreme Court."

Seldom has the capital been so spoiling for a fight, and seldom has the only person with the power to ring the opening bell been so Sphinx-like. The combination has put senators and interest groups into a strange state of suspended animation.

The conservative Federalist Society has been flying lawyers from around the country to Washington for media training on how to talk about a nominee. Direct-mail companies on both sides have drafts of fund-raising letters awaiting only the name of a retiree and nominee.

"I think it means 'stay tuned,' " said Thaddeus E. Strom, the former Republican chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "There is still time this week."

There is no set protocol for Supreme Court retirements. Some justices have made the announcements on the final day of a term, while others have done so days or weeks later. When Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement 14 years ago, he did so in a letter to the first President Bush that was made public about 2½ hours after the court adjourned for the summer.

This is actually a fairly canny article. Purdum did his homework. It is true that advocacy organizations on both ends of the political spectrum have their lobbiest armies and advertising dollars ready to go to work (I'm part of the effort on the left). The Right has a highly coordinated strategy which includes the RNC ready to go to the mattresses. I obtained some of their documents a couple of weeks ago. The strategy outlined in those documents calls for the announcement of a vacancy and a new nominee being held until the beginning of September. Several news outlets have speculated about this in recent weeks. Time will tell, won't it?

Nation-building

A Tenuous Grip on Sovereignty
# A year after taking the formal reins of government, the Iraqis are far from having a sense of control over their own destiny.

By Borzou Daragahi, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD — On a busy commercial strip, U.S. soldiers cajole a ragged band of reluctant Iraqi army recruits to take charge of their own streets. In the highest corridors of power, U.S. officials press Iraqi politicians to meet political deadlines. A year after occupation authority head L. Paul Bremer III handed the formal reins to an appointed Iraqi government, private military firms contracted by the Pentagon continue to wield guns with scant regard for Iraqi authorities.

But long gone are the days when U.S. and British officials of Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority controlled all aspects of the Iraqi state. Ministries that oversee Iraq's natural resources, energy reserves, schools, hospitals and finances have evolved over the last year into vigorous players in Iraq's daily life. And elected Iraqi politicians are devising their own constitution with little direct involvement by U.S. officials.

"We cannot any longer simply dictate, but have to lobby, persuade, cajole and implore," says Larry Diamond, a former Baghdad-based CPA official who is now a scholar at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "At the same time, how independent can the government really be when it is still largely, in fact utterly, dependent on American troops for its security? Ultimately, full independence will only come when this dependence on the U.S. for security ends."

Bremer handed formal control of Iraq over to the interim government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi in a low-key June 28, 2004, ceremony that lasted less than 20 minutes. But the reality of Iraqis taking control of their own streets, government and borders has been a longer and more tangled story.

Sovereignty — a nation's control over its affairs and territories — is about symbols of national pride, and command over physical space and decision-making. U.S. Embassy officials continue to occupy the same Republican Palace from which Bremer, and Saddam Hussein before him, ran the country. It lies within the Green Zone, a four-square-mile fortress in the heart of the nation's capital controlled by the U.S. military.

Many Iraqi ministries are also within the Green Zone. Though the Western officials who ran them in the wake of the March 2003 invasion are now gone, new Westerners have taken on roles as advisors or consultants, some of them paid directly out of the Iraqi public treasury.

Washington officials visiting Baghdad last month acknowledged that they were pressuring Iraqis to move quickly toward drafting a constitution by an Aug. 15 deadline. Although Iraqis are making their own choices, the U.S. insists, for example, that Iraq remain unified and that the future government operate with laws respecting human rights and democratic principles.

I have generally respected Daragahi's reporting from Baghdad, but this story is partaking of Pentagon groupthink. Iraqi "sovereignty" is an illusion, something for an imagined future. We are an occupying force which dictates everything the puppets do and the Iraqis know it.

What sovereignty means is that they can tell us to go home. We aren't there yet.

Help Wanted

David Corn informs us:

Is this a sign of how bad things are in Iraq? NPR has posted a job announcement for a Baghdad "reporter"and a "correspondent" on journalismjobs.com. (A "correspondent" is a more senior position than a "reporter.") Within the world of journalism, war postings, despite the danger, are usually considered plum assignments. Was there nobody within NPR eager and ready to go to Baghdad? The salary for these positions was not specified.

I know I won't be applying.

Revisiting Downing Street

From Memos, Insights Into Ally's Doubts On Iraq War
British Advisers Foresaw Variety of Risks, Problems

By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 28, 2005; Page A01

LONDON -- In the spring of 2002, two weeks before British Prime Minister Tony Blair journeyed to Crawford, Tex., to meet with President Bush at his ranch about the escalating confrontation with Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sounded a prescient warning.

"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few," Straw wrote in a March 25 memo to Blair stamped "Secret and Personal." "The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."

In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration's calls for elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Straw's memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to disaster.

The documents indicate that the officials foresaw a host of problems that later would haunt both governments -- including thin intelligence about the nature of the Iraqi threat, weak public support for war and a lack of planning for the aftermath of military action. British cabinet ministers, Foreign Office diplomats, senior generals and intelligence service officials all weighed in with concerns and reservations. Yet they could not dissuade their counterparts in the Bush administration -- nor, indeed, their own leader -- from going forward.

"I think there is a real risk that the administration underestimates the difficulties," David Manning, Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote to the prime minister on March 14, 2002, after he returned from meetings with Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, and her staff. "They may agree that failure isn't an option, but this does not mean they will necessarily avoid it."

A U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of the events said the concerns raised by British officials "played a useful role."

"Were they paid a tremendous amount of heed?" said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I think it's hard to say they were."

Critics of the Bush administration contend the documents -- including the now-famous Downing Street Memo of July 23, 2002 -- constitute proof that Bush made the decision to go to war at least eight months before it began, and that the subsequent diplomatic campaign at the United Nations was a charade, designed to convince the public that war was necessary, rather than an attempt to resolve the crisis peacefully. They contend the documents have not received the attention they deserve.

Supporters of the administration contend, by contrast, that the memos add little or nothing to what is already publicly known about the run-up to the war and even help show that the British officials genuinely believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. They say that opponents of Bush and Blair are distorting the documents' meaning in order to attack both men politically.

But beyond the question of whether they constitute a so-called smoking gun of evidence against the White House, the memos offer an intriguing look at what the top officials of the United States' chief ally were thinking, doing and fearing in the months before the war.

This article is based on those memos, supplemented by interviews with officials on both sides of the Atlantic -- none of whom was willing to be cited by name because of the sensitivity of the issue -- and written accounts. Spokesmen for the Foreign Office and the prime minister's office declined to comment but did not question the authenticity of the documents.

Well, it is about damn time that the WaPo notices that we were lied to, on the morning of the day Bush addresses the nation on the Iraq mess. It would have been better if their damn White House reporter had asked some of these questions a few weeks back. Or before the war.

Flu Wiki Stretches it's Wings

I'll give an interview to The Canadian Press's Helen Branswell about bird flu and the Flu Wiki in the morning. I daresay that I'll have more to report later.

Hubbert's Peak

The Vanishing Mirage of Saudi Oil
# Dwindling reserves may end the Petroleum Age.

Consider the DOE's projections. Because of the rapidly growing international thirst for petroleum — much of it coming from the United States and Europe, but an increasing share from China, India and other developing nations — the world's expected requirement for petroleum is projected to jump from 77 million barrels per day in 2001 to 121 million barrels by 2025. Fortunately, says the DOE, global oil output will also rise by this amount in the years ahead. But over one-fourth of this additional oil — about 12.3 million barrels per day — will have to come from Saudi Arabia.

The problem is, if you take away Saudi Arabia's 12.3 million barrels, there is no possibility of satisfying anticipated world demand in 2025.

The Saudis vehemently deny their fields are in decline. The DOE, with no independent verification, backs them up. In the end, it comes down to this: America's entire energy strategy, with its commitment to an increased reliance on petroleum as the major source of our energy, rests on the unproven claims of Saudi oil producers that they can continuously increase Saudi output in accordance with the DOE predictions.

And this is where Simmons enters the picture, with his meticulously documented book, "Twilight in the Desert." Simmons is not a militant environmentalist or anti-oil partisan; he is chairman and CEO of one of the nation's leading oil-industry investment banks, Simmons & Co. International. For decades, he has been financing the exploration and development of new oil reservoirs. In the process, he has become a friend and associate of many of the top figures in the oil industry, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Essentially, Simmons' argument boils down to four major points:

(1) Most of Saudi Arabia's oil output is generated by a few giant fields, of which Ghawar — the world's largest — is the most prolific.

(2) These giant fields were first developed 40 to 50 years ago, and have since given up much of their easily extracted petroleum.

(3) To maintain high levels of production in these major fields, the Saudis have come to rely increasingly on the use of water injection and other secondary recovery methods to compensate for the drop in natural field pressure.

(4) As time passes, the ratio of water to oil in these underground fields rises to the point where further oil extraction becomes difficult, if not impossible. To top it all off, there is very little reason to assume that future Saudi exploration will result in the discovery of new fields to replace those now in decline.

This being the case, Simmons concludes, it would be the height of folly to assume that the Saudis are capable of doubling their petroleum output in the years ahead, as projected by the DOE.

The moment that Saudi production goes into permanent decline in the not-too-distant future, the Petroleum Age as we know it will draw to a close. Oil will still be available on international markets, but not in the abundance to which we have become accustomed and not at a price that many of us will be able to afford. Transportation, and everything it affects — virtually the entire world economy — will be much more costly. The cost of food will also rise, as modern agriculture relies to an extraordinary extent on petroleum products for tilling, harvesting, protecting, processing and delivery. Many other products made with petroleum — paints, plastics, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and so forth — will also prove far more costly. Under these circumstances, a global economic contraction appears nearly inevitable.

Read the whole article, and I'm going to go out and get the book. I have long been pursuaded that the Saudi/Bush oil cartel has been selling us whoosh for a long time. My own estimates of Hubbert's Peak put it in the near future, not the far, 2007-2014. It will take a while for production to fall to the point where it will affect the global economy, but it will if we don't start making some serious preparation now. I don't see that happening.

Choosing Supremes

Supreme appointments

June 27, 2005

What a relief it would be for the entire nation if Bush sought to fill any Supreme Court vacancies, now or in the rest of his term, with judges who have demonstrated a passion for unraveling the facts and arguments before them rather than a zeal to impose their point of view. A crucial group of 14 senators -- Republicans and Democrats -- last month urged Bush and his advisers to consult with senators before making a formal nomination. ''Such a return to the early practices of our government may well serve to reduce the rancor that unfortunately accompanies the advice and consent process in the Senate," they said.

Their statement came as the 14 defused the ''nuclear option" threatened by the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist. Under this option, the Republican majority was prepared to use a dishonest interpretation of Senate rules to ram through the confirmation of right-wing judicial appointments. Despite the compromise, Frist didn't renounce the option, which remains a threat.

With Supreme Court nominees, or course, the stakes could not be higher. Justices now frequently serve 20 or 30 years -- Chief Justice William Rehnquist was appointed to the court in 1971 -- so the influence of presidents extends long after the voters have any recourse. With the court now closely divided on many issues, one or two new ideologues could alter the national fabric fundamentally. Remember, this is a court that has already snatched a national election out of the hands of Florida voters and election officials.

Recent Bush nominations, such as that of John Bolton to the United Nations and several appeals court candidates, show an inclination toward confrontation and a disdain for consensus. If that applies to the Supreme Court as well, those who fight the nominations will be the ultimate patriots.

If there is a vacancy, the decision will be up to Bush. Elected as a uniter, he could still reclaim a bit of that for the historical record. Or he could be one of the greatest presidential dividers ever.

Just a reminder that the fact that we've heard nothing so far today is meaningless. A retirement or retirements could come at any point between now and the beginning of the next term of the Court. I'm hearing rumors that the period around Labor Day weekend is a target.

I concur with the Boglo ed board this morning: chances are that Bush will choose ideological, divisive nominees, just as he has for the other federal courts.

5-4 Court

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal by Journalists in C.I.A. Leak Case

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 27, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court rejected appeals Monday from two journalists who have refused to testify before a grand jury about the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

The cases asked the court to revisit an issue that it last dealt with more than 30 years ago -- whether reporters can be jailed or fined for refusing to identify their sources.

The justices' intervention had been sought by 34 states and many news groups, all arguing that confidentiality is important in news gathering.

"Important information will be lost to the public if journalists cannot reliably promise anonymity to sources," news organizations including The Associated Press told justices in court papers.

Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and The New York Times' Judith Miller, who filed the appeals, face up to 18 months in jail for refusing to reveal sources as part of an investigation into who divulged the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Plame's name was first made public in 2003 by columnist Robert Novak, who cited unidentified senior Bush administration officials for the information. The column appeared after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote a newspaper opinion piece criticizing the Bush administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium in Niger.

Disclosure of an undercover intelligence officer's identity can be a federal crime and a government investigation is in its second year. No charges have been brought.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, the special counsel handling the probe, told justices that the only unfinished business is testimony from Cooper and Miller.

Cooper reported on Plame, while Miller gathered material for an article about the intelligence officer but never wrote a story.

A federal judge held the reporters in contempt last fall, and an appeals court rejected their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources in the federal criminal proceeding.

Something tells me we aren't going to learn anything new from this. Who did leak to Novak?\

Ten Commandments Disallowed in Courthouses
Supreme Court Rules, 5-4, That Such Religious Displays Violate the Separation of Church and State

By HOPE YEN
The Associated Press
Monday, June 27, 2005; 10:32 AM

WASHINGTON -- In a narrowly drawn ruling, the Supreme Court struck down Ten Commandments displays in courthouses Monday, holding that two exhibits in Kentucky crossed the line between separation of church and state because they promoted a religious message.

The 5-4 decision, first of two seeking to mediate the bitter culture war over religion's place in public life, took a case-by-case approach to this vexing issue. In the decision, the court declined to prohibit all displays in court buildings or on government property.

The justices left themselves legal wiggle room on this issue, however, saying that some displays _ like their own courtroom frieze _ would be permissible if they're portrayed neutrally in order to honor the nation's legal history.

But framed copies in two Kentucky courthouses went too far in endorsing religion, the court held.

"The touchstone for our analysis is the principle that the First Amendment mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the majority.

"When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates that central Establishment clause value of official religious neutrality," he said.

Souter was joined in his opinion by other members of the liberal bloc _ Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor, who provided the swing vote.

The court has really swung to the right if this issue could be decided so narrowly. This such a clear violation of the non-establishment clause that it should be a no-brainer.

Who's the Fairest of Them All?

VA Gets the Picture -- No Shortfall Here

By Al Kamen

Monday, June 27, 2005; Page A13

Turns out that $1 billion shortfall for health care funding for our nation's veterans -- disclosed last week at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing -- is only one of many important and vexing dilemmas facing top officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Take, for example, this discussion of a major problem during the weekly conference call a few weeks ago among senior officials at the Veterans Health Administration, which is the medical part of the VA.

"As you know," Deputy Undersecretary Laura Miller said on the May 27 call, "many of our facilities, medical centers, CBOCs" -- that's community-based outpatient clinics; there are about 850 of them in the country, many in rural areas and some open only one to two days a month -- "and [other] offices have a picture of Secretary [ Jim ] Nicholson prominently displayed.

"Unfortunately, however," Miller continued, "there are many facilities that currently do not have the picture displayed. I am aware that the mailings of the pictures occurred on April 22, 2005." So that's more than five full weeks.

"Dr. Perlin" -- that's Jonathan B. Perlin , undersecretary for health, who revealed the $1 billion shortfall after being grilled by committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) -- "and I cannot stress the importance of this enough," she said. "We are asking that you give this your highest priority. We will continue to ask for daily updates on the status until we are assured that all of our facilities have a current picture displayed."

In defense of local VA officials, it turns out that Miller was wrong: Not all the photos went out on April 22. And we hear some officials disagreed that the photos should be their "highest priority."

"And here we're trying to figure out where our next patient meal is coming from and what furniture to sell to buy drugs next year," one VA official said.

Agency officials said Friday that 100 percent of the VHA facilities have reported appropriate placement of the Nicholson photos. Well, it is important to be able to recognize the head of the agency, especially after last week's hearing. Nicholson was the author of an April 5 letter to senators saying, "I can assure you that VA does not need [additional funds] to continue to provide timely, quality service. . . . "

If by some chance any CBOCs or hospitals lost or did not get the pictures, we provide one here that you can cut out and use just in case a headquarters inspector shows up to check on compliance with this important initiative. Or you can pull one down from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/politics/fedpage/

In all honesty, this kind of egomaniacal bullshit isn't restricted to any one administration. This is simply Washington.

Unfooled

Poll: Optimism on Iraq Is Premature
Most Americans Dispute White House Assessment of Weakened Insurgency, Post-ABC Survey Finds

By Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 27, 2005; 8:42 AM

A majority of Americans reject claims by the Bush administration that the insurgency in Iraq is weakening and are divided on whether victory over the insurgents will have a major impact on terrorism elsewhere in the world, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Barely one in five Americans -- 22 percent -- say they believe that the insurgency is getting weaker while 24 percent believe it is strengthening. More than half -- 53 percent -- say resistance to U.S. and Iraqi government forces has not changed.

The Post-ABC poll also found that few Americans agree with Vice President Cheney that the insurgency is in its "last throes." That claim, which Cheney made recently in an interview with Larry King on CNN, has been repeatedly challenged by critics of the administration's Iraq policy and defended by Bush officials.

One in four Americans -- 25 percent -- say they believe that the bloody campaign against U.S. forces and the fledgling Iraqi government is on "its last legs." Even among those who think the resistance is weakening, only half believe that the insurgency is in its final stages.

As with virtually every facet of the Iraq issue, deep partisan divisions were reflected in views of the current state of the insurgency. More than a third of all Republicans -- 35 percent -- said the insurgents were growing weaker in Iraq, compared to 13 percent of all Democrats and 19 percent of all political independents.

The public was sharply divided over another widely publicized claim about Iraq made by a top administration official. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking last week in Brussels, asserted in a address to the 80-nation conference on the reconstruction of postwar Iraq that a victory over anti-government and U.S. forces will be "a death knell for terrorism as we know it" elsewhere. But fewer than half -- 46 percent -- of those interviewed agreed that defeating the insurgents in Iraq would do much to defeat terrorism elsewhere while 53 percent said it would have, at best, only some positive impact on the broader anti-terrorism campaign.

All that Rumsfeldian bluster on the Sabbath Gasbags hasn't bought Bushco very much.

Pragmatic Politics

The Chinese Challenge

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 27, 2005

Until now, the Chinese have mainly invested in U.S. government bonds. But bonds yield neither a high rate of return nor control over how the money is spent. The only reason for China to acquire lots of U.S. bonds is for protection against currency speculators - and at this point China's reserves of dollars are so large that a speculative attack on the dollar looks far more likely than a speculative attack on the yuan.

So it was predictable that, sooner or later, the Chinese would stop buying so many dollar bonds. Either they would stop buying American I.O.U.'s altogether, causing a plunge in the dollar, or they would stop being satisfied with the role of passive financiers, and demand the power that comes with ownership. And we should be relieved that at least for now the Chinese aren't dumping their dollars; they're using them to buy American companies.

Yet there are two reasons that Chinese investment in America seems different from Japanese investment 15 years ago.

One difference is that, judging from early indications, the Chinese won't squander their money as badly as the Japanese did.

The Japanese, back in the day, tended to go for prestige investments - Rockefeller Center, movie studios - that transferred lots of money to the American sellers, but never generated much return for the buyers. The result was, in effect, a subsidy to the United States.

The Chinese seem shrewder than that. Although Maytag is a piece of American business history, it isn't a prestige buy for Haier, the Chinese appliance manufacturer. Instead, it's a reasonable way to acquire a brand name and a distribution network to serve Haier's growing manufacturing capability.

That doesn't mean that America will lose from the deal. Maytag's stockholders will gain, and the company will probably shed fewer American workers under Chinese ownership than it would have otherwise. Still, the deal won't be as one-sided as the deals with the Japanese often were.

The more important difference from Japan's investment is that China, unlike Japan, really does seem to be emerging as America's strategic rival and a competitor for scarce resources - which makes last week's other big Chinese offer more than just a business proposition.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation, a company that is 70 percent owned by the Chinese government, is seeking to acquire control of Unocal, an energy company with global reach. In particular, Unocal has a history - oddly ignored in much reporting on the Chinese offer - of doing business with problematic regimes in difficult places, including the Burmese junta and the Taliban. One indication of Unocal's reach: Zalmay Khalilzad, who was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan for 18 months and was just confirmed as ambassador to Iraq, was a Unocal consultant.

Unocal sounds, in other words, like exactly the kind of company the Chinese government might want to control if it envisions a sort of "great game" in which major economic powers scramble for access to far-flung oil and natural gas reserves. (Buying a company is a lot cheaper, in lives and money, than invading an oil-producing country.) So the Unocal story gains extra resonance from the latest surge in oil prices.

If it were up to me, I'd block the Chinese bid for Unocal. But it would be a lot easier to take that position if the United States weren't so dependent on China right now, not just to buy our I.O.U.'s, but to help us deal with North Korea now that our military is bogged down in Iraq.

Can you say "wholly owned subsidiary?" I thought you could.

The Think Tanks

Countdown to the G8 Summit: A Preview of the Challenges and Opportunities
A panel discussion with Brookings experts on issues on the agenda for the upcoming G-8 summit in Scotland. This year, the G-8 nations will focus on Africa and global climate change. Panelists include Brookings Senior Fellows Lael Brainard, Susan Rice, David Sandalow, and Philip Gordon. James Steinberg, vice president and director of Foreign Policy Studies, will moderate. Susan Rice, former assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, will discuss the pace of U.S. aid to Africa.

Thursday, June 30, 10:00 a.m.

I'll be there

The New New Thing

Launch of the Flu Wiki

Just a Bump in the Beltway, The Next Hurrah and Effect Measure blogs announce the launch of a new experiment in collaborative problem solving in public health, The Flu Wiki.

A Wiki is a form of collaborative software that allows anyone to edit (change) any page on the site using a standard web browser like Explorer, Firefox or Safari.The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies. Communications technology has now become sufficiently available to allow a new form of collaborative problem solving that harvests the rich fund of knowledge and experience that exists among those connected via the internet, allowing more talent to participate.

What the Flu Wiki is not:

* a news filter
* a discussion board
* a place to promote commercial products
* a soap box
* a place to advance pet theories

There is nothing wrong with these things. Many of us have blogs that do some or all of them. The wiki is not a replacement or competition for any existing blog or site. We hope existing sites will continue to grow, flourish and generally continue to carry out the important functions they have already done so well.

What we hope the wiki will be:

* a reliable source of information, as neutral as possible, about important facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
* a venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if a pandemic does occur
* a venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable problems

No one, in any health department or government agency, knows all the things needed to cope with an influenza pandemic. But it is likely someone knows something about some aspect of each of them and if we can pool and share our knowledge we can advance preparation for and the ability to cope with events. This is not meant to be a substitute for planning, preparation and implementation by civil authorities, but a parallel effort that complements, supports and extends those efforts.

The open nature of the wiki format has shown itself able to develop surprisingly effective and sophisticated products, as in the Wikipedia. Whether it will work to fashion new solutions to a complex public health problem remains to be seen. This is in the nature of a grand experiment. We hope you will join us in it.

The initial offerings are small and illustrative, in keeping with the limited resources of those of us who are turning the keys in the ignition for the first time. While we will continue to administer and maintain the Wiki, we are turning the wheel over to the community, to take it where the road leads us. There is a bit of a learning curve to driving this rig. We hope you will find the instructions sufficient to get started. You'll soon be learning on your own. There is a "sandbox" page you can use to play with if you wish.

Here's the URL: http://www.fluwikie.com/. Regularly updated content will be forthcoming in the days and weeks to come, both by us and by you. That's what wikis are for.

See you there.

Melanie Mattson (Just a Bump in the Beltway), DemFromCT (The Next Hurrah), Revere (Effect Measure).

Keep a Copy in Your Pocket

Rights Groups Fault White House for Jailing of Terror Suspects
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, June 26 - Two leading civil rights groups charge in a new study that the Bush administration has twisted the American system of due process "beyond recognition" in jailing at least 70 terror suspects as "material witnesses" since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the groups are calling on Congress to impose tougher safeguards.

The report, which is to be released on Monday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union, found that the 70 suspects, a quarter of them American citizens and all but one Muslim men, were jailed often for weeks or months at a time in American facilities without being charged with a crime. Ultimately, only seven men were charged with supporting terrorism, with four convicted so far, the report said.

The report charges that many of the men who were held as material witnesses were "thrust into a Kafkaesque world of indefinite detention without charges, secret evidence, and baseless accusations."

With Congress now locked in a fierce dispute over the government's counterterrorism powers under the Patriot Act, the new report reflects an effort by civil rights groups to expand the debate to a range of other legal tools that the Bush administration is using in its campaign against terrorism. Aides to Senator Patrick J. Leahy, ranking Democrat on the judiciary committee, said he would introduce legislation aimed at limiting the government's ability to detain a material witness indefinitely.

The material witness law, enacted by Congress in 1984, allows federal authorities to hold a person indefinitely if they suspect he has information about a crime and may be unwilling to cooperate or poses a risk of fleeing.

The law has been used for many years to compel the testimony of thousands of illegal immigrants whom authorities feared would flee the country rather than cooperate in investigations into border smuggling and other crimes. But since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has significantly expanded its use in terrorism investigations, and Bush administration officials acknowledge that they see the law as a valuable tool in detaining American citizens and others whom they view not merely as witnesses, but terror suspects.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, in a speech last year in Washington while he was still serving as White House counsel, said that when the authorities took into custody an American citizen who was a suspected terrorist, they would consider a range of options, "including the potential for a criminal prosecution, detention as a material witness, and detention as an enemy combatant."

Justice Department officials defended their expanded view of the law in interviews and recent congressional testimony, saying that they have sought to use it sparingly and to follow all legal safeguards allowing those material witnesses who are jailed to contact lawyers and to challenge their detention.

Say goodby to the Bill of Rights.

The Coming Plague

Bird flu experts alarmed
Virus has not subsided, raising pandemic fears.

By Marian Uhlman
Inquirer Staff Writer

The unusual behavior of the avian flu has gotten stranger: The virus, which caused no confirmed cases last summer in Vietnam, is continuing to infect people this year.

Its persistence is boosting anxiety levels among world health officials who say the virus eventually could mutate and fuel a devastating pandemic.

"Everything suggests, that the situation we are in now, there is a greater risk for a pandemic than for many decades," said Dr. Peter Horby, a medical officer and epidemiologist for the World Health Organization in Hanoi. "The situation is much more complex than a year ago."

In a telephone interview, Horby said he's more concerned because the virus continues to infect people in Vietnam and is widespread in Asian bird populations, even showing up unexpectedly in domesticated ducks.

"This year, there doesn't appear to be a stop," said Klaus Stöhr, head of WHO's global influenza program in Geneva. "Every human case is worrisome because there is another chance for the virus to [mutate] and a higher chance for a pandemic to occur."

WHO confirmed four human cases this month in Vietnam, and news reports suggest two more cases have been identified this past week. By comparison, the country had no reported cases between April and late summer last year, Stöhr said.

As of mid-June, 107 human cases - including 54 deaths - have been confirmed in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia in the last 18 months. The majority occurred in Vietnam.

When the avian flu first started infecting people in late 2003 in Vietnam, Horby said, it was expected to be around weeks or maybe months before subsiding. But now, he said, "we are almost in a chronic outbreak situation."

No one knows whether the avian virus - also called H5N1 - will trigger a pandemic, but it's got many health experts on edge. If the virus figures out how to efficiently infect people, it could sicken and kill millions because humans lack immunity against the disease. Commerce would likely come to a halt, and food and medicines could be in short supply.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have collected new viral samples in Vietnam from humans to evaluate whether it is getting more dangerous, according to Dave Daigle, an agency spokesman. He said the CDC plans to publish its findings soon.

Stöhr said it was unclear why human cases have not receded this summer. It could be better surveillance or more instances of bird-to-human transmission. Or perhaps the virus has become more adept at infecting people.

"We have to plan our actions more urgently now that the virus is with us," Horby said. "There is no respite."

This is just a reminder that the Reveres, DemFromCT and I will be launching the new Flu Wiki first thing tomorrow morning. We've been writing the first articles and working with pogge to get the place spruced up and ready for you. Pogge did all the technical work and wrote the instructions (which are so clear that even I understand them,) so drop him a note if you like the result.

I'll have the formal announcement and URL for you first thing in the morning.

No Way Out

Use G8 to save America from itself

IAIN MACWHIRTER argues that G8 leaders gathering at Gleneagles should put aside personal enmity and take the opportunity to devise an exit strategy from Iraq with a UN-sanctioned timetable

So what exactly are we there for? Why are 80 Americans giving up their lives every month? Another six US soldiers died on Friday, bringing the total to 1731 American casualties since the war began in March 2003, along with 20,000 seriously injured. Some 88 British soldiers have died. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died as well, of course, but nobody bothers to count them.

Yet, the military situation is getting worse, not better, as the US commander in the Gulf, John Abizaid, told Congress last week. There are more militants fighting in Iraq than there were six months ago. US military planners fear it could be six years before American troops come home. That could mean another 4000 to 5000 dead. Another two September 11s.

The stoicism of the US people in the face of this carnage is extraordinary and strangely noble. American mothers genuinely believe that they are making this supreme sacrifice in order to defend their country from the scourge of international terrorism. This is a society which is highly averse to casualties, and George W Bush told them to expect none at all.

But America has is finally realising that it has been cruelly misled; drafted into this war under false pretences. A majority of the Americans now tell opinion pollsters that the war wasn’t worth it. Nobody seriously believes that the invasion has lessened the risk of international terror. The CIA warned last week that a new breed of super-militant jihadists is being schooled in Iraq, much tougher and more ruthless even than the mujahideen who emerged from the Afghanistan in 1980s. Well, they were warned.

Pretty soon, American mothers are going to demand a halt. An exit strategy. But the defence planners never had one. They believed their own propaganda. They thought that with smart weapons, stealth bombers and computerised logistics, this war could be fought from the air. Shock and awe would show that resistance to American might was futile. Bush thought his boys would be coming home almost as soon as they arrived.

This has been shown to be the US’s biggest military miscalculation since Vietnam. It isn’t quite the same scale of disaster as the war in Indochina, but it is going the same way. Donald Rumsfeld conceded last week that there could be no timetable for troop withdrawal. His exit strategy is “one more heave”.

Rummy was on all of the Sabbath Gasbags this morning. Bushco's rhetorical strategy for justifying the war this week is to make the same assertions over and over again at higher volume. Rather reminds me of the Americans I see abroad who do the same thing with natives who don't speak English.

I'll be curious to see whether or not the rest of the G8 do try to bail Bush out at Gleneagles next month. Given that most have reduced their defense budgets to next to nothing, letting us handle the job, there should be some motivation on their part to get us out of the quagmire we are in. Whether C+ Augustus understands he is in trouble and needs help is another matter altogether.

Sunday Brunch

I promised you some veggie recipes this weekend. This is from a friend of mine who made it for a brunch I attended this week. I will happily make it for the next brunch I host.

EDINBURG Inn Breakfast Delight

Edinburg Inn Bed and Breakfast, Ltd, 218 South Main Street
Edinburg, Virginia, 22824 540-984-8286

Judy and Clyde Beachy, Innkeepers, say this dish is so popular that it's often requested by returning guests or those staying more than one night.


2 4oz. cans chopped green chilies
1 lb. shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 lb. shredded Cheddar cheese
4 egg whites
4 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. salt
2/3 cup canned evaporated milk (5 oz. can)
1 Tbsp. flour
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 large tomatoes, sliced


Mix cheeses, chilies in large bowl.
Spread into lightly greased 9"+ 12" baking dish.
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Blend egg yolks and remaining ingredients (except tomatoes) and fold into egg whites gently. Pour mixture over cheese and "cut" with knife to slightly mix.
Bake for 30 min. in 325' oven.
Arrange tomato slices on top and bake 30 min. longer.


Yield: 8 - 10 servings

Delicious with a fruit salad and mimosas.

Walk in the Woods

This inquiring mind would like to know how the Sunday (London)Times has been able to develop such an interesting range of sources in the last couple of months. I note an interesting conversation with Brooke Gladstone on NPR's "On the Media" yesterday, regarding Rupert Murdoch's new friendship with the Clintons and the way that his personal relationships color his newspapers. I'll put up a link when NPR posts it.

UPDATE: Here is the audio link.

US 'in talks with Iraq with Iraq rebels'
Hala Jaber
Insurgents reveal secret face-to-face meetings

AT a summer villa near Balad in the hills 40 miles north of Baghdad, a group of Iraqis and their American visitors recently sat down to tea. It looked like a pleasant social encounter far removed from the stresses of war, but the heavy US military presence around the isolated property signalled that an unusual meeting was taking place.

After weeks of delicate negotiation involving a former Iraqi minister and senior tribal leaders, a small group of insurgent commanders apparently came face to face with four American officials seeking to establish a dialogue with the men they regard as their enemies.

The talks on June 3 were followed by a second encounter 10 days later, according to an Iraqi who said that he had attended both meetings. Details provided to The Sunday Times by two Iraqi sources whose groups were involved indicate that further talks are planned in the hope of negotiating an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in Iraq.

Despite months of American military assaults on supposed insurgent bases, General John Abizaid, the regional US commander, admitted to Congress last week that opposition strength was “about the same” as six months ago and that “there’s a lot of work to be done against the insurgency”.

That work now includes secret negotiations with rebel leaders, according to the Iraqi sources.

Washington seems to be gingerly probing for ways of defusing home-grown Iraqi opposition and of isolating the foreign Islamic militants who have flooded into Iraq to wage holy war against America under the command of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The talks appear to represent the first serious effort by Americans and Iraqi insurgents to find common ground since violence intensified in the spring. Earlier informal contacts were reported but produced no perceptible progress.

Zarqawi’s group, which has been blamed for many suicide bombings and beheadings, has not taken part.

According to both Iraqi sources, preparations for this month’s meetings were supervised by Ayham al-Samurai, a Sunni Muslim and former exile who lived in America for 20 years. He returned to Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein to become electricity minister in the interim government.

One of his main challenges was to persuade both sides that they could meet without being ambushed. Both eventually provided pledges that no hostile acts would be attempted.

The American contingent is said to have arrived in a convoy of four armoured Humvee vehicles and at least two armoured personnel carriers. The military escort remained outside the compound while the four US negotiators were greeted by tribal sheikhs who had agreed to host the meeting.

The Pentagon had no immediate comment to make on the Iraqi claims despite repeated requests for confirmation.

The Iraqi sources, who have proved reliable in the past, said the American team included senior military and intelligence officers, a civilian staffer from Congress and a representative of the US embassy in Baghdad.

If any of this is true (a big if) it may represent the only way the US can get out of Iraq without looking like a beaten puppy leaving an utter disaster in its wake.

Extraordinary Rendition

In Italy, Anger at U.S. Tactics Colors Spy Case

By STEPHEN GREY
and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
Published: June 26, 2005

MILAN, June 25 - The extraordinary decision by an Italian judge to order the arrest of 13 people linked to the Central Intelligence Agency on charges of kidnapping a terrorism suspect here dramatizes a growing rift between American counterterrorism officials and their counterparts in Europe.

European counterterrorism officials have pursued a policy of building criminal cases against terrorism suspects through surveillance, wire-taps, detective work and the criminal justice system. The United States, however, has frequently used other means since Sept. 11, 2001, including renditions - abducting terror suspects from foreign countries and transporting them for questioning to third countries, some of which are known to use torture.

Those two approaches seem to have collided in the case of an Egyptian cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, or Abu Omar, who led a militant mosque in Milan.

By early 2003, the Italian secret police were aggressively pursuing a criminal terrorism case against Mr. Nasr, with the help of American intelligence officials. Italian investigators said they had told the Americans they had strong evidence that he was trying to build a terror recruitment network, possibly aimed for Iraq if the United States went forward with plans to topple Saddam Hussein.

On Feb. 17, 2003, Mr. Nasr disappeared.

When the Italians began investigating, they said, they were startled to find evidence that some of the C.I.A. officers who had been helping them investigate Mr. Nasr were involved in his abduction.

"We do feel quite betrayed that this operation was carried out in our city," a senior Italian investigator said. "We supplied them information about Abu Omar, and then they used that information against us, undermining an entire operation against his terrorist network."

He and other senior Italian officials in Milan's police and prosecutor's office were angry enough to answer detailed questions about the case, but insisted on anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

"This whole investigation has been very difficult because we've been using the same methods we used against organized crime to trace the activities of people we considered to be our friends and colleagues," the senior Italian investigator said. "It has been quite a troubling affair."

The Italian warrants - requested by Milanese prosecutors after two years of investigations - accuse 13 people identified as American C.I.A. officers and operatives of illegally abducting Mr. Nasr from a Milan street and flying him to Egypt for questioning. The whereabouts of the 13 are unknown, but the charges are criminal. If convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years and 8 months in prison.

Wait a minute...We're acting like assholes and the rest of the planet is having a problem with that?

Spliced Corn

GMO foods can bring benefits, vigilance needed-WHO

Thu Jun 23, 2005 10:54 AM BST

GENEVA (Reuters) - Genetically-modified foods can bring benefits both to farmers and consumers, but safety checks are needed before they are sold, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.

In a report, the United Nations agency said that genetically-modified organisms (GMO) can increase crop yields and food quality, thereby improving health and levels of nutrition as well as profits.

But since some of the genes used in GMO crops have not been in the food chain before, the potential effects on health must always be assessed before they are grown and marketed.

Those foods currently available on the international market had undergone such tests and there was no evidence they could cause problems, the WHO said in its 58-page report.

The subject is sensitive in Europe where consumers have reacted against what are sometimes viewed as "Frankenstein" foods, and the European Union is locked in a trade row with the United States over Brussels' reluctance to authorize imports.

Some 800 million people in developing countries were undernourished, despite a 50 percent decline in world food prices over the past two decades, and the global population was expected to grow by another 2 billion to 8 billion in 2025, the WHo said. GMOs could play an important role in helping to meet these future food needs, it added.

"Producing nutritionally enhanced properties in staple crops eaten by the poor could reduce the burden of disease in many developing countries," the WHO said in the report.

I'm honestly torn about the issue of genetically modified foods. One the one hand, I really don't want to deny the incredible improvements that science can make towards ending hunger in the world. Granted, new foods won't deal with distribution problems and poverty, but they can ease many dire situations through out the world.

However, at least here in America, there has been very little discussion about the impact of genes within the food system. Now, I'm not as paranoid as many people in Europe are, but I also suspect I'm not as well informed. The government (Food and Drug and Agriculture) needs to be sure that there isn't a significant risk to humans sa we alter our crops. More importantly, they need to be sure and inform the public right away if there is a problem. Otherwise, someone might mistaken that as a conflict of interest.

Wait a minute... a conflict of interest in this administration.... never....

2 Years Ago

Be careful everyone, this is a happy and positive entry....

ok, are you still with me? Good.

Two years ago, I remember exactly where I was at 2:30 in the afternoon that Wednesday. I was at the Sheraton in Greenville, North Carolina participating in a workshop. It was a chance for me to earn some extra money because we were going to need it in the fall once my wife had our twins. They were due in October, but we expected them to appear early, probably around her birthday at the start of September. We had even attend our first Lamaze class the night before and I had driven back down from Raleigh to Greenville that morning (about an hour and a half if you stick close to the speed limit). At that time, I received a message from the hotel to call my mother at once at a number I didn’t recognize.

I called the number and got her in the hospital. It turned out that my wife had felt some contractions, luckily reached my father who took her to the doctor, and was now at the hospital where they were going to perform a C-Section on her to save the twins, even though they were one day shy of 25 weeks. My mother, a lady who does not panic, told me to hurry to the hospital because she didn’t know what was going to happen next. That alone was enough to tell me that something was seriously wrong.

When I arrived at the hospital, I made it up to the room my wife was in and was told by the doctor, “I’m glad you’re here, we were just getting ready to leave.” At 4:29 PM and 4:30 PM, the children arrived visa via C-Section. Baby Girl A was screaming at the top of her little lungs as loud as she could... Baby Boy B hardly made a sound. The children were whisked away to isolets and we were left to ponder what had happened. A doctor there who specialized in preemies told me quite bluntly, “I think your daughter has between a 2/3 and 3/4 chance of survival since she was breathing. Your son only has a 1/2 to 2/3 chance.” The scariest thing about that moment is what I thought when I heard those odds, namely they were better than I could hope for. Each child weighed just over 1 and 1/2 pounds (660 and 646 grams respectively).

This started our long odyssey with the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) at WakeMed hospital. This NICU is nationally ranked as one of the best in the US and I can tell you that they deserve every bit of it. The people who worked there were nothing short of amazing, both in how they dealt with the children and how they dealt with the family. In fact, I suspect the family might be the hardest to deal with because you are in such a continual state of shock that it’s hard to know exactly how to react, especially when all of this medical terminology is thrown at you at once and there is no prep time for it. There are also a ton of emotional roller coasters involved that even if you logically understand they are there, that doesn’t mean you can handle them emotionally. The idea that for the first couple of weeks, we would be excited over the weight gain of 15 grams is enough to cause a shudder down my spine. Thankfully, my wife and I were blissfully optimistic about the chances the kids had. Otherwise, I don’t know how we would have made it from week to week and even then, some days I don’t know how we did it aside from the fact that we didn’t have a choice.

We were really blessed with the fact that we had family close by in the form of my parents and brother. They spent countless hours in the NICU with the children and helping us get everything ready ar our house. My wife’s parents flew in form Oklahoma early on, but weren’t able to both return until Christmas (her mother flew in a couple of times in between and is blessed with a very understanding boss). We also were blessed with an extremely supportive church family that went out of their way to help us any way they could. My mother regularly sent out daily e-mail updates to close friends and relatives about how the children were doing. Soon they started to send them to their friends and religious groups. Eventually, we all lost track of how many people were following the progress of the twins.

The doctor wasn’t exaggerating on the odds for these kids. If they had come much earlier, one or both of them would not have survived for more than a day or so (most preemies’ organs aren’t developed enough to survive much before 23 weeks). Even so, they were at risk for many delays and problems since they were so early (one fellow teacher told me during a workshop a month later that she was sorry that both of the kids would be “guaranteed to have ADD and developmental delays” even though she had never seen them). Baby Boy B especially had the odds against him since, as a white male, he faced the longest odds to recovery. In fact, he had to undergo a major heart surgery at one month called a pda ligation . He later had to have surgery done on his eyes and one on a hernia he developed. Thankfully, Baby Girl A didn’t need any surgeries even though she did have a small hole in her heart.

It helped that the babies decided that even though they were early, they wanted to stick around for a while. For example, Baby Girl A removed her breathing tube herself after one week and actually stayed off of it for a while before it had to be put back in. That, and other actions, earned her the nickname “Spitfire” which she still lives up to today. Baby Boy B had a much harder time especially since he had to be placed back on the ventilator after his hernia surgery which really through him for a loop. Still, all of the nurses in the NICU told us that he was a “flirt” and would follow all of the conversations around him. He picked up the nickname “Tigger”, and his energy level hasn’t diminished one bit. We were able to hold Spitfire a couple of weeks after her birth but weren’t able to hold Tigger for much longer. It was so hard to visit and only be able to place our hands inside of the isolets instead of being able to hold our child.

Spitfire came home one week before her due date, 100 days after being born. She came home without any assistance at the heavy weight of 4 pounds. Tigger, who had suffered that relapse with the hernia surgery, came home 15 days later on an oxygen tank and a monitor that bleeped and blorked at a moments notice (which was turned off quickly for Mom and Dad’s sanity if for no one else’s). He weighed around 4 pounds and started to lose weight as he did not want to take a bottle. We were very worried early on that he would have a feeding tube placed in him but thankfully that didn’t take place.

And here we are, two years later with twins that, if you didn’t know better, don’t appear to have any cares in the world. Tigger does show some signs of his rocky beginning... he has a paralyzed vocal chord from the pda ligation (not surprising since the blood vessel they were aiming for was behind his grape sized heart when they did the surgery) so when he speaks, it’s in a whisper and his speaking language is delayed. He is also a couple of pounds lighter than his sister, but he’s also more active than she is. She still has that hole in her heart, but it may be closing on its own and the doctors aren’t worried. Both of them are developing perfectly fine mentally and physically. They both love music and to bang on things. They did an entire year of daycare and will start at a Montessori program half day next year.

These kids are a living example of the power of prayer and love. Many of the nurses in the NICU commented that the kids who recovered the fastest were those that had parents who visited every day and interacted with them. We know that the mailing list got forwarded to many church congregations who placed them on their prayer lists and Lord knows, those kids needed every one of those prayers that they received.

We received a lot of services over the last two years (Social Security and county services which the kids are still on) which have had varying degrees of effectiveness, but we have been unbelievably lucky to this point. Many families of preemies aren’t as fortunate as we’ve been. Yet, many state governments like Louisiana are busy cutting services to families with preemies as a way to balance their budgets. Don’t they understand that this early therapy is an investment in these children, not to mention their stressed out and panicked parents? What kind of “Christian” can look at a family with a 5 pound child on oxygen and a feeding tube and tell them that the nurse that is needed every day to monitor the machines can’t come any more because some rich guy needs a new tax shelter? Or better yet, it’s the parents’ fault that the child was early, so they should bear the burden for the child’s welfare (just try that with my wife... you won’t find a jury that will convict her for what happens next).

Honestly, it will cost the government less in the long run to help a child and its family now then to have to spend the money on them later but the child development experts already know this, we just need to remind our politicians about it again and again.

Just to close a very long entry, my daughter gave me a birthday gift today. She’s just learned how to say “I love you.” even if comes out as “I Vovyu.” and she came up to me and gave me a big hug and told me that to my face and her brother joined her, honking at me and signing “thank you”. Wow!

Hopefully, the package of Nilla Wafers behind me had nothing to do with my sudden popularity :).

Accountability

Safer Vehicles for Soldiers: A Tale of Delays and Glitches

By MICHAEL MOSS
Published: June 26, 2005

When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Iraq last year to tour the Abu Ghraib prison camp, military officials did not rely on a government-issued Humvee to transport him safely on the ground. Instead, they turned to Halliburton, the oil services contractor, which lent the Pentagon a rolling fortress of steel called the Rhino Runner. Skip to next paragraph

State Department officials traveling in Iraq use armored vehicles that are built with V-shaped hulls to better deflect bullets and bombs. Members of Congress favor another model, called the M1117, which can endure 12-pound explosives and .50-caliber armor-piercing rounds.

Unlike the Humvee, the Pentagon's vehicle of choice for American troops, the others were designed specifically to withstand bigger attacks in battlefields like Iraq with no safe zones. Last fall, for instance, a Rhino traveling the treacherous airport road in Baghdad endured a bomb that left a six-foot-wide crater. The passengers walked away unscathed. "I have no doubt should I have been in any other vehicle," wrote an Army captain, the lone military passenger, "the results would have been catastrophically different."

Yet more than two years into the war, efforts by United States military units to obtain large numbers of these stronger vehicles for soldiers have faltered - even as the Pentagon's program to armor Humvees continues to be plagued by delays, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Generals Who Admit ‘Lack of Leadership’ Should Be Fired

By Eilhys England Hackworth
and Roger Charles

News reports earlier this week carried one of the most shameful performances by a Marine general officer before a congressional committee since 1983, when then-Commandant P.X. Kelley tried to avoid any moral responsibility for not preventing the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 American warriors, including 220 Marines.

Kelley tried to tap-dance away from accountability by actually claiming he "was not in the chain of command." While true on a strictly operational basis, his disavowal did not play well on Capitol Hill and was widely believed to have cost him his chance to serve as the first Marine Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Now we have the Nyland–Catto duck-and-weave show, where Gen. William "Spider" Nyland, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, and his one-star lackey, Brig. Gen. William Catto, the chief of Marine Corps Systems Command, confessed with straight faces to the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that the lack of armored Humvees was due to "lack of leadership" – although they assured the committee that their same lousy leadership would somehow make sure the Humvees and military trucks that the Marines used in Iraq "would be adequately protected by December."

Their testimony dovetailed with the release of a damning Marine Corps Inspector General report this week – obtained from sources by SFTT – that reveals the overall deterioration of Marine ground equipment due to the high optempo in Iraq.

For a Marine general to admit such a crummy leadership failure costing the lives of Marines in combat and somehow keep his command is probably the most twisted Beltway stunt since Pentagon hypesters sucked The Washington Post into publishing their public relations spin on Pfc. Jessica Lynch fighting "to the last bullet."

If Nyland and Catto truly accepted personal responsibility for a failure of leadership which led to the deaths of their Marines, they had one, and only one, honorable course of action – to walk the plank and resign their commissions. A painful trip that would have meant kissing their generous pensions and juicy revolving-door perqs goodbye.

The silence from Marine Commandant Mike Hagee's office on this matter merely underlines that Nyland and Catto were playing the "take responsibility" ploy with his approval – and a gullible news media once again bought into a Pentagon con that let the perps prevail.

Hagee – who should have been taking responsibility and sitting at the table alongside Nyland and Catto – was instead running around presenting coins to the grieving parents of a Marine being buried at Arlington National Cemetery and a Marine being readied for surgery at Bethesda National Naval Medical Center. Certainly, he had the power to have given these folks something even more meaningful along with the coins – new and competent commanders with the right stuff to prevent other needless casualties.
....
As with Hagee, Rumsfeld also should be fired for his conspicuous-by-his-silence endorsement of sorry leaders whose incompetence continues to get our fighters killed, crippled and blinded.

But don't hold your breath. Rumsfeld, Hagee, Nyland and Catto will slug on. And vehicles without adequate and available armor will continue to be torn up by IEDs. And crocodile tears will continue to be shed by Perfumed Princes during photo opportunities at Arlington, Bethesda and Walter Reed.

And more American kids will pay in blood for the uncaring incompetence of Rumsfeld & Co.

Facts v. Happy Talk

Terror Strategist Warns of Lengthy Iraqi Insurgency
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Correspondent
June 24, 2005

CNSNews.com) - With Democrats and even a few Republicans escalating their criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq, and with polls indicating shrinking public support, a top terrorism strategist Friday said the president should "stop talking down" to Congress and the American people.

Anthony Cordesman, a strategist with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, blamed the Bush administration for "major strategic mistakes in preparing to deal with Iraq once Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

Cordesman, who traveled to Iraq earlier this month, said he "did not see progress in aid. I did not see progress in economics. I did not see that the U.S. has a plan for using the aid they are providing."

On Tuesday night, President Bush will deliver a nationally televised speech on the situation in Iraq, at a time when at least one poll indicates nearly two-thirds of Americans feel it would be wise to bring the American troops home in the next year, rather than waiting for Iraq to stabilize.

The latest Harris Interactive survey showed that 63 percent of Americans want the troops brought home in the next year, up from only 47 percent who felt that way on Election Day last November.

Brookings maintains an Iraq Index which is updated twice a week, tracking the reconstruction and security issues. It very much backs up Cordesman's observations.

CSIS has also been giving regular briefings on Iraq, the most recent by Cordesman himself yesterday. Here is the audio, or you can read the report (.pdf.)

Summer Bounty

The farmers' market yielded some goodies for dinner tonight, the fields of Loudon County, Virginia and southern Pennsylvania are already producing. I have a couple of rules for the summer: eat as much fresh sweet corn and vine ripened tomatoes as possible.

The menu tonight:

Vine ripened heritage tomatoes, sliced and served with fresh mozarella, fresh basil, extra virgin olive oil and a grind of pepper

Baby zucchini squash, halved, cut sides slathered with minced garlic, olive oil and salt and pepper, broiled for five minutes (this is an old Lebanese recipe, the name translates "the pleasure of the chef.")

Add cold, minted iced tea and this is a banquet.

Cold Wind

Just so you can't say I didn't warn you:

Peace churches gear for draft
Members consider conscientious objector programs

By TOM INFIELD

The Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA - For the first time since the Vietnam War, pacifist churches are thinking of how to prepare young men to become conscientious objectors in the event the draft is resumed.

President Bush, leaders of Congress, and the military brass all say forcefully that, no, no, no, there are no plans for military conscription.

But members of what are often called the historic peace churches -- Mennonites, Brethren and Quakers -- believe a draft appears more and more likely as U.S. troops continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Army fails to meet its recruitment goals.

"We are probably one terrorist attack -- one 9/11 -- away from a draft," said Dan McFadden, director of Brethren Volunteer Service in Elgin, Ill.

Leaders of the peace churches, which have their roots in Pennsylvania, say that what they may need to do now is prepare in-house programs in which their young men might perform two years of required civilian public service in exchange for not having to go into the military.

The draft ended in 1973. But the Selective Service System, which is charged with maintaining machinery for a draft, is encouraging the peace churches to make contingency plans.

"We do encourage it," said Cassandra Costley, who was appointed last year as director of a new alternative-service division within Selective Service.

"It's not because we expect there is going to be a draft in the next year -- or the next five years," Costley said from her office in Rosslyn, Va. "But our mandate is that we be prepared."

McFadden was among three Brethren and Mennonite leaders from across the United States who held a telephone conference this month to go over options for alternative service.

"There aren't any definite plans at this point; we are just going to keep talking," he said.

Codex Curiosity

Peering Through the Layers Of Ancient Christian Texts
Mount Sinai Monastery Hopes Imaging Technology Will Reveal Faded and Obscured Writings

By Tom Perry
Reuters
Saturday, June 25, 2005; B09

MOUNT SINAI, Egypt The world's oldest monastery plans to use high-tech cameras to shed new light on ancient Christian texts preserved for centuries within its fortress walls in the Sinai Desert.

St. Catherine's Monastery hopes the technology will allow a fuller understanding of some of the world's earliest Christian texts, including pages from the Codex Sinaiticus, the oldest surviving Bible in the world.

The technique, known as hyperspectral imaging, will use a camera to photograph the parchments at different wavelengths of light, highlighting faded texts obscured by time and later writings.

It should allow scholars to understand corrections made to pages of the Greek Codex Sinaiticus, written between A.D. 330 and 350 and thought to be one of 50 copies of the Scriptures commissioned by Roman Emperor Constantine.

"If you look at all the corrections made by each scribe, then you can come out with a principle on which he was correcting the text," monastery librarian Father Justin said.

In a joint project with the monastery, libraries in Britain, Germany and Russia, which together hold the bulk of the manuscript, will also scan pages and fragments of the text to digitally reunite the work in a facsimile.

The monastery had kept the Codex Sinaiticus until the mid-19th century, when the bulk of it was taken to Russia by a German scholar and never returned. Russia sold those pages in 1933 to the British Library, where they are still kept.

The monks thought they had lost the entire manuscript to Europe until 1975, when they discovered 12 of its pages and 15 fragments in a forgotten chamber, buried under a collapsed ceiling with thousands of other parchment leaves and fragments.
....
Father Justin, who is from Texas, has started digitizing some of the monastery's best-preserved manuscripts using a camera that can take photos up to a resolution of 72 megapixels.

"When I came to Sinai, I came to live in the desert. I didn't know I'd be doing computer photography and going to London four times a year," he said.

The monastery aims to have 100 manuscripts photographed and accessible through a Web site by the middle of next year. "Even though it's only 100 out of 3,000, it will be an important scholarly resource," Father Justin said.

Book historians are cataloguing the condition of the manuscripts and the physical features of their bindings, 50 percent of which are original.

"The evidence of where a manuscript has been and where it has come from to get here is often in the binding," Pickwoad said.

Conservators are even keeping the dust they brush from the manuscripts in a search for traces of pollen or seeds that may yield evidence of how texts in languages including Persian, Amharic and Hebrew made it to the middle of the Sinai Desert.

This won't be great news for Biblical literalists, but for the rest of us who use the historical-critical method of reading ancient texts, it is wonderful.

My Old Testament professor speaks 6 modern and 7 ancient languages. A little humility in the face of that is a good thing. I know he will be approaching these new manuscripts with great curiosity and awe.

Messing About

Three Things About Iraq

Published: June 25, 2005

To have the sober conversation about the war in Iraq that America badly needs, it is vital to acknowledge three facts:

The war has nothing to do with Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein was a sworn enemy of Washington, but there was no Iraq-Qaeda axis, no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks on the United States. Yet the president and his supporters continue to duck behind 9/11 whenever they feel pressure about what is happening in Iraq. The most cynical recent example was Karl Rove's absurd and offensive declaration this week that conservatives and liberals had different reactions to 9/11. Let's be clear: Americans of every political stripe were united in their outrage and grief, united in their determination to punish those who plotted the mass murder, and united behind the war in Afghanistan, which was an assault on terrorists. Trying to pretend otherwise is the surest recipe for turning political dialogue into meaningless squabbling.

The war has not made the world, or this nation, safer from terrorism. The breeding grounds for terrorists used to be Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia; now Iraq has become one. Any sensible discussion of what to do next has to begin by acknowledging that. The surest way to make sure that conversation does not happen is for the administration to continue pasting the "soft on terror" label on those who want to talk about the war.

If the war is going according to plan, someone needs to rethink the plan. Progress has been measurable on the political front. But even staunch supporters of the war, like the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a hearing this week that President Bush was losing public support because the military effort was not keeping pace. A top general said this week that the insurgency is growing. The frequency of attacks is steady, or rising a bit, while the repulsive tactic of suicide bombings has made them more deadly.

"Of all the justifications for invading Iraq that the administration juggled in the beginning, the only one that has held up over time is the desire to create a democratic nation that could help stabilize the Middle East."

That's the most imperialistic horseshft I've ever heard. It equates to "If we impose our standards on them, the whole region will be better." There is no historical justification for such a thought. It cooks out to "we know better than you do."

Israel is the oldest "democracy" in the neighorhood. Has that made for peaceful neighbors? Turkey is a democracy, but that hasn't settled the strife with its Kurds.

This foolish and immoral war is the best argument so far for letting the locals sort it out among themselves. The hubris of the neocons is that they think they know better what's good for you.

The High Stakes Game

U.S. furor grows over Chinese firm's bid to grab Unocal

Politicians claim $18.5-billion CNOOC offer is a threat to U.S. energy security

By GEOFFREY YORK AND SHAWN MCCARTHY
Saturday, June 25, 2005

BEIJING, NEW YORK -- China found itself embroiled in the biggest corporate battle in its history yesterday as its state-owned oil company plunged ahead with a campaign for the hearts and minds of the U.S. politicians who could decide the fate of its bid for Unocal Corp.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) announced on Thursday an $18.5-billion (U.S.) bid for the California-based oil giant, the ninth-biggest oil company in the United States. The bid is sparking a furor in Washington, where politicians are raising the spectre of a Chinese threat to American energy security.

Four members of Congress have asked the U.S. administration to consider the security implications of the Chinese takeover bid. They said it was not a free-market deal, but a blatant Chinese grab for American oil resources.

CNOOC, China's third-largest energy company, moved quickly yesterday to try to assuage American fears of a national security threat.

In a statement issued in Beijing, the company said it was prepared to sell some U.S. assets and place others under American management.

"Substantially all of the oil and gas produced by Unocal in the U.S. will continue to be sold in the U.S.," CNOOC chairman and CEO Fu Chengyu said in the statement yesterday.

"The development of properties in the Gulf of Mexico will provide further supplies of oil and gas for American markets," he added.

CNOCC is bidding against Chevron Corp., which had an agreement to purchase the company for $16.65-billion.

The battle for Unocal is showing China's newfound savvy in takeover bids.

With an official policy that encourages its biggest firms to acquire worldwide assets, Chinese business leaders are rapidly gaining experience in the political and diplomatic nuances of takeover battles.

CNOOC has recruited a high-powered battery of American lobbyists, law firms, investment banks and public-relations specialists to help it win the political struggle in Washington.

Mr. Yu's statement was faxed around Capitol Hill by the company's newly hired lobbyists, the Washington law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Haver & Feld LLP.

CNOOC's financial advisers -- led by Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan -- stand to earn fees of $200-million to $300-million if its bid for Unocal is successful, according to a report yesterday in the Financial Times. It would be the biggest such payment in Asian history.

However, the company must first deal with any government roadblocks that a hostile Congress might erect.

A spokesman for California Republican Richard Pombo, chairman of the House Committee on Resources, said CNOOC's promises are unlikely to influence members of Congress.

"I don't think people are going to be swayed by promises of kindness and friendliness by CNOCC," Mr. Pombo's director of communications, Brian Kennedy, said yesterday.

"The Chinese national government owns 70 per cent of the company which raises the questions whether it [CNOCC] will do the bidding of the free market or the Chinese national government."

A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the United States should keep politics out of consideration and let CNOOC's bid go forward.

"We have observed there is opposition to this bid, but we hope all commercial transactions will remain free of political interference," Liu Jinchao said at a briefing in Beijing yesterday.

Energy analyst Cal Luft said the CNOOC bid is not a pure commercial transaction because it has the backing of the national government and is part of a national strategy to gain access to global energy supplies.

"I don't know how seriously we should take their promises because once they need the oil, they are going to make sure they get it, and that will be to the detriment of the United States," said Mr. Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington-based think tank.

He said the bid for Unocal is just one example of China's increasing investment in global energy sources -- including Canada's oil sands and Venezuelan oil fields. "The trend should be raising alarms" among lawmakers in Washington, Mr. Luft said.

Energy policy, anyone?

Opportunity Knocks

U.S. will stay the course in Iraq, Bush pledges

By David E. Sanger The New York Times
SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005

President Bush on Friday promised the Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, that he was "not giving up on the mission" in Iraq despite rising pressure on the White House to describe a strategy for gradual American withdrawal.

Bush shrugged off suggestions that the military and members of his administration disagree on the strength of the insurgency.

Standing in the East Room beside Jaafari, a longtime dissident-in-exile when Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq, Bush once again promised that he would not set a schedule for drawing down the American presence, in the face of growing calls in Congress and from the public to do so.

"There are not going to be any timetables," Bush said in the news conference. "Why would you say to the enemy, you know, here's a timetable, just go ahead and wait us out?"

Suggesting that would be a sign of weakness, he said that if a schedule were set "you're conceding too much to the enemy."

Jaafari, who spoke primarily in Arabic, broke into English to state his agreement with Bush. "This is not the time to fall back," he said.

He echoed the White House view that good news in Iraq is being drowned out by the steady string of bombings and other attacks, and argued that "I see from up close what's happening in Iraq, and I know we are making steady and substantial progress."

Yet Bush's insistence that he will stay the course sets up a delicate political task for Tuesday night, when the president has asked the major networks to broadcast a prime-time address at Fort Bragg. It will mark the first anniversary of the end of the American occupation and the handover of power to the Iraqis.

With American casualties showing no signs of tapering off, Bush is having an increasingly difficult time convincing even members of his own party that his strategy is working.

The White House is having to contend with televised images each day reinforcing the constant carnage, while military leaders report no letup in attacks or the influx of foreign fighters, and the training of Iraqi forces progresses with painful slowness.

Bush seemed to preview next week's speech when he said the development of political institutions in Iraq gave him optimism about the future. But he was most vociferous on the question of not giving in to the insurgents, and seemed to link their attacks with the polls showing growing American sentiment to find an exit.

"They figure if they can shake our will and affect public opinion, then politicians will give up on the mission," he said. "I'm not giving up on the mission. We're doing the right thing, which is to set the foundation for peace and freedom."

Bush declined to answer directly when asked about apparent disagreements - or at least notable differences in language - between Vice President Dick Cheney and General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq.

Emphasis mine. Again, we are "staying the course" to disaster. Perhaps Bumpers would like to let the President know their views.

Update: Dave Johnson @ Seeing the Forest has a "Fire Carl Rove" petition here.

Contamination

CNN just announced that the British lab doing the testing confirmed a second case of BSE in the US beef supply (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or "mad cow.")

Here's is the reason that I eat only organic beef:

Loopholes in Ban on Cattle Remains in Feed

The Food and Drug Administration promised in January 2004 to close loopholes in a ban on putting cattle remains in cattle feed, but it has failed to act. The government calls the ban a "firewall" against the spread of mad cow disease. Eating the mad cow disease protein is the only way cows are known to get the disease.

Loopholes include:

-Ground-up cattle remains can be fed to chicken, and chicken litter is fed back to cattle. Poultry feed that spills from cages mixes with chicken waste on the ground, then is swept up for use in cattle feed. Scientists believe the BSE protein will survive the feed-making process and may survive being digested in chickens.

-Cattle blood can be fed to cattle and often comes in the form of milk replacement for calves. Some scientists believe blood from infected cattle could transmit the disease.

-Restaurant leftovers, called "plate waste," are allowed in cattle feed. Cuts of meat that contain part of the spinal cord, or become contaminated by spinal tissue while being prepared, could be infected with BSE.

-Factories are not required to use separate production lines and equipment for feed that contains cattle remains and feed that does not, creating the risk that cattle remains could accidentally go into cattle feed.

-Besides being fed to poultry, cattle protein is allowed in feed for pigs and household pets, creating the possibility it could mistakenly be fed to cattle.

-Unfiltered tallow, or fat, is allowed in cattle feed, yet it has protein impurities that could be a source of mad cow disease.

Hmmm. All of the news today is pretty depressing. I think it might be time to post some vegatarian recipes over the weekend.

How Mengele Started

Interrogators Cite Doctors' Aid at Guantánamo Prison Camp

By NEIL A. LEWIS
Published: June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON, June 23 - Military doctors at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have aided interrogators in conducting and refining coercive interrogations of detainees, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears, according to new, detailed accounts given by former interrogators.

The accounts, in interviews with The New York Times, come as mental health professionals are debating whether psychiatrists and psychologists at the prison camp have violated professional ethics codes. The Pentagon and mental health professionals have been examining the ethical issues involved.

The former interrogators said the military doctors' role was to advise them and their fellow interrogators on ways of increasing psychological duress on detainees, sometimes by exploiting their fears, in the hopes of making them more cooperative and willing to provide information. In one example, interrogators were told that a detainee's medical files showed he had a severe phobia of the dark and suggested ways in which that could be manipulated to induce him to cooperate.

In addition, the authors of an article published by The New England Journal of Medicine this week said their interviews with doctors who helped devise and supervise the interrogation regimen at Guantánamo showed that the program was explicitly designed to increase fear and distress among detainees as a means to obtaining intelligence.

The accounts shed light on how interrogations were conducted and raise new questions about the boundaries of medical ethics in the nation's fight against terrorism.

Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, declined to address the specifics in the accounts. But he suggested that the doctors advising interrogators were not covered by ethics strictures because they were not treating patients but rather were acting as behavioral scientists.

He said that while some health care personnel are responsible for "humane treatment of detainees," some medical professionals "may have other roles," like serving as behavioral scientists assessing the character of interrogation subjects.

The military refused to give The Times permission to interview medical personnel at the isolated Guantánamo camp about their practices, and the medical journal, in an article that criticized the program, did not name the officials interviewed by its authors. The handful of former interrogators who spoke to The Times about the practices at Guantánamo spoke on condition of anonymity; some said they had welcomed the doctors' help.

Pentagon officials said in interviews that the practices at Guantánamo violated no ethics guidelines, and they disputed the conclusions of the medical journal's article, which was posted on the journal's Web site on Wednesday.

Several ethics experts outside the military said there were serious questions involving the conduct of the doctors, especially those in units known as Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, BSCT, colloquially referred to as "biscuit" teams, which advise interrogators.

"Their purpose was to help us break them," one former interrogator told The Times earlier this year.

This is not new news, I remember reading about it last year in The Lancet, the British medical journal. But let's get all the infection out on the table. I can't find any way that this behavior is compatible with the Hypocratic Oath, at the very least. There ought to be some sort of professional sanction for this.

Sunshine Patriots

The Other Guy's Sacrifice

By Richard Cohen

Friday, June 24, 2005; Page A31

The late John Gregory Dunne -- novelist, essayist, screenwriter -- was my friend. For a year or two around 1990, though, he wouldn't have anything to do with me. I found this out the hard way by inviting him to dinner. He wouldn't come, he said, and when he asked if I wanted to know why, he told me flat out: I was a hypocrite.

The proof of my hypocrisy was my support of the looming Gulf War. I wanted Iraq out of Kuwait, and I wanted Saddam Hussein dealt with. But when Dunne asked me if I wanted these things badly enough that I would want my own son to fight in the upcoming war, I said no -- I would leave that to others. If this be hypocrisy, then I am a hypocrite.

In the end, Dunne and I resumed our relationship, but I never really knew what to make of his criticism. I thought that he had something of a point. But I also saw limited war the way I see a fire or a bank holdup or some such thing. We call on cops or firefighters to risk their lives to do what we are not willing or able to do ourselves. This is their task, and sometimes it costs them their lives.

As far as I was concerned, my firefighter-police officer analogy held for the Iraq war also -- at least until I concluded that the war itself was a mistake. Until that moment, I had thought that getting rid of Hussein was a dandy idea, especially since he was purportedly armed with hideous weapons of mass destruction. We now know they did not exist -- although they once did -- and neither did his alleged ties to al Qaeda. Still, Hussein is gone. "Was it not worth at least some sacrifice to remove such a man from power?"

The quote is from a June 19 Post op-ed by Robert Kagan, one of the most thoughtful and influential of the pro-war foreign policy intellectuals. I read that sentence with the eyes of my late friend. I know Dunne would have pounced on it, clipped it from the paper and called someone to ask precisely who or what Kagan was willing to "sacrifice." It is not likely to be anyone Kagan knows, since middle-aged Yale graduates are not likely to have friends in the National Guard or children hankering to join the Marines. Even the Vietnam War, with a draft that initially managed to catch mostly the poor, cast a more egalitarian net than this one.
....
Dunne liked to refer to "sunshine patriots" -- those of us who called for others to fight a war we or our children would never fight. This war was conceived by sunshine patriots and directed by them -- and fought for reasons that some in the administration knew were exaggerations or, in some cases (Dick Cheney's nuclear scare-mongering), sheer fabrications. It has become the sorriest of wars, conceived for one reason, fought for another, good enough for others to fight, not good enough for ourselves and, maybe, an awful quagmire in the making. It's time the sunshine patriots looked outside.

It's raining.

This is the mirror of the argument I had with pro-war liberal friends. When I asked them, how much in blood and treasure? they never had an answer.

Congress Notices

Roll Call is subscription only, but I'm reproducing the part that matters. Kondracke "gets it."

Avian Flu Could Become Top ’08 Issue. Seriously.

By Mort Kondracke
Roll Call Executive Editor

June 23, 2005

According to Foreign Affairs, “Since it first appeared in southern China in 1997, the virus has mutated, becoming heartier and deadlier and killing a wider range of species.

“If the relentlessly evolving virus becomes capable of human-to-human transmission, develops a power of contagion typical of human influenzas and maintains its extraordinary virulence, humanity could well face a pandemic unlike any ever witnessed.”

The implication is that the death toll could be in the hundreds of millions, even a billion, given vulnerabilities in the under-developed world. A pandemic could crush the world economy.

And then, the article adds: “Or nothing could happen.”

The combined threat of infectious disease — the avian flu is just one of several menaces — plus bioterrorism presents a quandary for U.S. politicians. Do they urgently prepare for the worst, possibly wasting vast resources, or cross their fingers and hope that nothing happens?

In a remarkable June 1 speech at Harvard University, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) — a physician and presidential candidate — declared infectious diseases and bioterrorism “the single greatest threat to our safety and security today” and said fighting them will be the overriding purpose of his political future.

At the same time, Frist is being criticized for not moving aggressively enough to get new BioShield legislation passed, notably by Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), who’s been driving the issue hard for years.

Frist and Lieberman are backing rival bills that offer tax, liability and other incentives to now-reluctant biotech companies to begin producing vaccines, diagnostics and therapies and to guarantee a market if they produce them.

Lieberman contends that his bill is more comprehensive, and his aides question whether Frist is pushing various Senate committees hard enough to get legislation enacted this year.

“You have a fascinating conflation of presidential politics and serious substance at work here,” said Chuck Ludlam, who’s retiring this week as a top Lieberman aide and former biotechnology lobbyist to join the Peace Corps.

“You have three presidential candidates interested in this issue,” he noted — Frist, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), a co-sponsor of the Lieberman bill. “Whoever is out in front will look pretty good if the worst happens. Anyone who’s behind the curve will look like a dolt.

“There will be 9/11-style commissions all over the place and hundreds of Richard Clarkes testifying that they warned about what was coming and higher-ups didn’t listen,” he said, referring to the former White House counter-terrorism aide who charged that the Bush administration initially ignored al Qaeda.

Frist, clearly, is not ignoring the problem. In his lecture at Harvard, he said that national leaders “will not be able to look away from what could be coming soon — a front of unchecked and virulent epidemics, the potential of which could rise above your every other concern.”

“For what the world could soon face it did not see even in the great wars of the last century,” he said. “These epidemics ... could be devastating beyond imagination.”

The Biohazard panel that I attended last month was on just this issue. Ludlam was there from Lieberman's office (he's a lawyer not a doctor and seemed fairly clueless to me.) Lieberman's bill is a huge, bloated thing that's basically a giant giveaway to Big PhARMA, Frist's is worse. Dr. David Ozonoff, from the Boston U School of Public Health, pretty much demolished him. Dave (who is both a friend and colleague) and I were able to spend a little time together over dinner after the panel (yet another of my virtual relationships that's gone actual) and talk about the completely deteriorated state of public health in this country. Neither Lieberman's nor Frist's do anything for public health infrastructure. We can have all the drugs in the world, but if we don't have a delivery system, we're screwed, as Mike Osterholm would say.

The Prime Minister of Viet Nam was here earlier this week to talk with Bush and it doesn't appear that the subject ever came up. Unbelievable. Reuters is reporting today that a moderate pandemic could cost a half-million dead and two million sick enough to need hospitalization, while we have fewer than half that many beds.

The Flu Wiki will go live on Monday, the contributors are already slaving away on their first offerings.

(Reuters link via H5N1 blog.)

The SS Tour

Bush's Invitation-Only Speech Riles Crowd in Montgomery
Opponents of President, Social Security Plan Block Traffic

By Nancy Trejos
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 24, 2005; Page A08

President Bush visited Montgomery Blair High School yesterday for a town hall-style meeting to discuss his plan to partially privatize Social Security -- an appearance that drew about 400 protesters outside the Silver Spring school.

The loudest voices came from some Montgomery County residents and Blair students who questioned why they were not allowed inside. They were kept far from the president, but their shouts and beating drums could be heard by some of the 500 invitees waiting to pass through security.

Although Montgomery police officers tried to confine them to one area, many of the demonstrators broke away and briefly disrupted traffic on University Boulevard. "I feel like he's kind of trespassing," said Katie Frank, 16, who will be a Blair senior next school year. "He should know we don't support him."

Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, said blocks of tickets were distributed to several nonprofit organizations, including Young America's Foundation, which selected the individuals who received them. The event was organized by the National Retirement Planning Coalition, a financial industry and advocacy group. Comedian and author Ben Stein, a Blair alumnus, is the group's honorary chairman.

Duffy said he did not know if any of those invited were county residents. "Once we give the tickets to the organizations, the White House doesn't ask for residency information," he said.

Bush said the Montgomery meeting and similar events across the country are important opportunities for him to explain his plan, which would give workers a chance to divert some payroll taxes to private investment accounts.

It's nice to see the next generation of local activists getting some real-world experience. This is the first time I've seen one of these Bamboozlepalooza events kick up some protest.

Summer Vacation

George Bush's long hot summer
Jun 23rd 2005
It should be used to rethink his ambitious second term

Reuters

GEORGE BUSH likes his summers hot. While the Clintons used to disappear to the cool breezes of Martha's Vineyard, he heads down to the furnace of Crawford, Texas, and spends an inordinate amount of time clearing brush on his ranch. This summer is likely to be sweatier than most.

Mr Bush's second term is not going well. The most visible disaster remains Iraq: the euphoria of the January election has worn off, six out of ten Americans want to bring their troops home and he has failed to get much help from the Europeans. His secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, is (correctly) beating the drum for democracy in the Middle East; but the face of American justice remains the internment camp at Guantánamo Bay, which Mr Bush seems unsure whether to close. A new Pew survey of global attitudes to the United States (see article) shows hearts and minds are not being won.

Things are also going badly at home, where his approval ratings have dipped below 45% (see article). The president has spent weeks on the road, flogging his ambitious plan to overhaul the Social Security system—and nobody seems to be buying it. This week, the ever less loyal Republican Congress again held up the nomination of John Bolton, his proposed ambassador to the United Nations. Mr Bush has had to postpone his efforts to reform the tax code, and he is struggling to hold down government spending, after his first-term splurge, and also to get through a tiny Central American trade deal.

Meanwhile, his promises to bring the country together after his re-election have faded away. Both the main Republican gambles on Capitol Hill this year—trying to “save” the life of Terri Schiavo, a brain-damaged Florida woman, and trying to force the Democrats to give up the filibuster they are using to block his judicial nominations—were deeply divisive and ended in failure. Congress is even less popular than he is. And soon (maybe next week, if the ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist retires at the end of the Supreme Court's current term) Mr Bush may have to nominate a new Supreme Court justice—plunging the country into its bitterest fight yet.

To Mr Bush's many critics, his discomfort is easy to explain: it is the sound of a flock of Texan wild turkeys coming home to roost. This most loathed of presidents is getting his come-uppance for being wrong on just about everything.

This rejoicing seems wrong on two counts. First, it is premature to write off Mr Bush: even in this fallow period, he can point to some achievements, including a partial reform of the tort system at home and the glimmerings of an Israeli-Palestinian deal abroad. He still enjoys the support of his base: his approval ratings are 85% among Republicans. And the Democrats lack both ideas and leadership.

Second, from this newspaper's perspective, Mr Bush has not been wrong about everything. We have never shared his enthusiasm for the religious right (see article), which is one reason to watch his Supreme Court appointments nervously. And we have long regarded his approach to both fiscal policy and civil liberties as reckless: he deserves all the flak he gets over Guantánamo. But we have supported his push for democracy in the Middle East, his tough approach to the war on terror and, yes, the Iraq war; and in his domestic policy we have found things to admire, including his education reforms and his willingness to tackle Social Security.

So what is he doing wrong? Mr Bush's biggest problem remains execution—a crucial failing in one so ambitious. The mistakes vary from challenge to challenge, but they usually involve three things: mis-selling, an obstinate refusal to change course or personnel and a failure to reach out to opponents.

W remains what he has always been: a f**k-up. Expecting anything else is foolishness.

"Clearing brush" is supposed to appeal to the same set of Reaganauts who got all swoony over Ronny splitting logs. It worked for Peggy Noonan.

Advise and Consent

Bush would consult Democrats if Supreme Court post opens

By Thomas Ferraro, Reuters | June 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The White House said yesterday that President Bush would consult up to a point with Senate Democrats if there is an opening on the US Supreme Court.

''Yes," spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters when asked if Bush would listen to members of the opposition party as well as Republicans in the Senate, who would decide whether to confirm any nominee to the nation's highest court.

But other officials made clear that the White House was not offering Democrats a veto on who Bush would nominate. Bush has said he would nominate conservative judges who strictly interpret the Constitution and do not legislate from the bench.

There has been widespread speculation that there may be a retirement soon on the Supreme Court, giving Bush his first opportunity to make a nomination to that bench.

Senate Democrats sent a letter to Bush yesterday, saying, ''We sincerely hope that you will consult meaningfully with senators on both sides of the aisle well in advance, especially in the event of a Supreme Court vacancy."

In doing so, they cited a recent bipartisan truce on the Republican president's most contentious appeals court nominees that urged such consultations.

The accord, signed by seven Democrats and seven Republicans, averted a showdown on a threatened Senate rule change to ban filibusters against judicial nominees. Under the agreement, confirmation votes were cleared for some of Bush's appeals court nominees, and Democrats reserved the right to filibuster other candidates ''under extraordinary circumstances."

The strength of the accord may be tested by Bush's first nomination to the high court, particularly if Democrats view the candidate as too conservative and out of the mainstream of legal thinking.

Senate Democrats complain that Bush, unlike his predecessors, has not conferred with members of both sides of the political aisle in making judicial nominations.

Um, Mr. Ferraro, that's not what Scottie said. And anyone who thinks the Democrats are going to be invited to lunch with the Prez have their heads in an anatomically difficult place.

Heading South

Another Year of Living Misery in Baghdad
Residents Face 'So Many Problems'

By Andy Mosher and Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 24, 2005; Page A01

"So many problems are happening in the city," said Mohammed Sarhan, 50, a grocer in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. "Where do I start -- water, electricity, security, unemployment or health?"

"This is not a life," Sarhan added. "This is hell."

A gathering of representatives from more than 80 countries and organizations in Brussels on Wednesday was marked by statements of support for Iraq and announcements of programs to assist the country's nearly five-month-old interim government. The conference had been billed in large part as that government's debut on the world stage and an opportunity for its leaders to lay out their plans to rebuild the country.

In Baghdad, however, the government's performance was repeatedly cited in interviews as one of the many disappointing aspects of a year that began with promise. Elections on Jan. 30 drew large numbers of voters to the polls despite the threat of insurgent violence. But formal installation of a government and formation of a committee to write Iraq's next constitution were delayed for months, and efforts to bring more Sunni Muslim Arabs into the process after they boycotted the elections continue to sputter.

"We sacrificed our souls and went out to vote. What did we get? Simply nothing," said Karima Sadoun, 56, as she stopped to buy vegetables at a shop in the eastern Baghdad district of Ghadir.

In another eastern neighborhood, Bashar Hanna, 30, said: "We need action, not speeches. . . . Iraqis now are like a car stuck in the mud. Whenever this car wants to get out of the mud, it sticks more in the crater it created."

While the on-again, off-again power supply is not new to Baghdad, it is no less maddening than in past summers, residents said. Statistics for May and June are not yet available, but the amount of electricity generated in the capital decreased steadily through February, March and April even as nationwide supplies rose, according to State Department figures. Baghdad's daily average of 854 megawatts in April was scarcely more than a third of the city's estimated prewar output of 2,500 megawatts a day.

Sarhan, the grocer, said the power shortages were affecting sales. "Not too many people come and buy from me, because they don't have electricity," he said. "They don't have a place to keep what they buy."

Contrary to all the bullshit dished to the Senate Armed Services committee yesterday, the Brookings Institution is actually keeping track of quality of life issues in Iraq, like water and electricity. Click on the link and look at the graphs. It's not getting better. Go ahead and argue with Michael O'Hanlon at your own peril. I wouldn't.

"Saving" Iraq

Heads in the Iraqi Sand

Vice President Dick Cheney has never been one to let reality get in the way of his message. With his credibility already strained after it turned out that none of his pre-war assertions about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were true, he is nonetheless still deluded by wishful thinking. A case in point: his recent assertion that increased violence in Iraq indicates the insurgency there is in its "last throes, if you will."

No, we won't, and neither, as it turns out, will the Army's top brass. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf, essentially said that was nonsense while testifying to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. "I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago," he said, adding that the strength of the insurgency is "about the same" as it was six months ago.

Abizaid's remarks indicate that the military is not going to let itself become the fall guy for the administration's mistakes, including its refusal to adequately plan for the postwar occupation (which the latest British "Downing Street memos" confirm).

Abizaid and other military officials may also be preparing to request an increase in the size of the Army. With the military woefully overstretched, it's almost inconceivable that U.S. forces can continue at their current levels in Iraq and simultaneously provide support for a conflict with North Korea or elsewhere. Even in an administration that is often reluctant to acknowledge mistakes, Cheney's brazen disregard for unpleasant realities has been shameless. It was the vice president who signaled in August 2002 in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars that the administration was headed for war in Iraq by declaring that Hussein might soon be able to construct a nuclear bomb.

The war is not unwinnable, but it will be if Bush and those close to him continue to seek refuge in Panglossian fantasies about its true cost and duration. Before the war, the administration was able to bat down military officials such as now-retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who as Army chief of staff predicted the U.S. would have to keep more than 200,000 troops in Iraq for years to pacify the country. No longer. Abizaid's remarks may loom as a turning point when the military confronts the administration with painful truths that cannot be dismissed as carping from appeasement-minded lefties. If you will.

What does "winnable" mean? What does it mean to "win" a war which was sold on lies? How can one "win" such a thing?

How much is Bush's Messiah complex going to cost us?

Character

Unlikely Allies Map Future
Deadlines Loom For Bush, Jafari

By Robin Wright and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 24, 2005; Page A25

With a self-assured firmness, Jafari said Iraqis had proved they were willing to "sacrifice anything" for democracy when 8.5 million risked their lives to vote last January. And despite suicide bombings in Baghdad yesterday, he said car bombings have dropped from 12 to 14 a day to one a day or every other day. Growing support from Iraqis has generated new public cooperation and information -- "more than we can handle," he added. Tribes are now helpful in identifying terrorists, a word he repeatedly used, rejecting the term "insurgent."

"So why, when a few bands of criminals choose soft targets and blow up marketplaces and schools and hospitals, are we threatened and terrorized and feel victims to this? Why do we allow ourselves held captives or hostage?" he said. "Soldiers who have died have died for a worthy cause." After meetings with Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, Jafari stopped last night at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to meet injured U.S. troops.

The other two keys to ending the insurgency are securing Iraq's six borders, particularly with Syria, and activating a new judiciary so terrorists can be held to account, he said.

Jafari's remarks come as Bush has been told privately by U.S. generals this week that Iraq's military is growing stronger and could allow U.S. troops to start pulling out next year.

Aides say Bush intends to begin speaking more forcefully about Iraq's transition and the progress in crafting a new government from scratch. He plans a major speech Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of Iraq's sovereignty. It will emphasize the importance of Jafari's success in meeting the six-month deadlines for a constitution, national referendum and elections for a permanent government, aides said.

With just seven weeks until a constitution is due, Jafari also insisted that the Iraqis will make the deadline even though nothing has yet been written. "We know there are challenges and we know there are difficulties, but certainly the difficulties in writing a constitution will be not as severe or as intense as they were during the elections . . . in putting together the government," he said in the interview with The Post.

The Iraqi and U.S. optimism comes in the face of growing concern among many analysts, and even some U.S. officials, about the tight timing -- and the prospect of extending the deadline until mid-2006. A six-month delay is allowed under Iraq's temporary law, but experts fear it could fuel public disillusionment and the insurgency.

"They won't meet the deadline. They took three months to form a government and they've barely managed to form a constitutional committee, which can't meet as there's no water or electricity in the parliament's building. It's very symbolic," said Juan R.I. Cole, an Iraq expert at the University of Michigan.

There are also underlying tensions in the relationship, analysts say. Top U.S. officials had hoped interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who was handpicked by U.S. and United Nations officials to lead the second phase of the transition last year, would stay in the job, said Larry Diamond, who served in the U.S.-occupation government and is author of "Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq." Despite the fact both men are deeply religious, they see a different role for religion in Iraq.

Yet as they approach the last pivotal stage, Bush and Jafari share common political tactics. "Both of these guys are survivors and winners in their own political game. Bush was in the political wilderness for a long time and came back strong, and so did Jafari," Cole said. "Both are savvy operators and wouldn't be where they are without it."

The Posties seem to love that "self assured firmness," which has allowed them to give Bush a pass on nearly every assertion he has made, along with all of Jafari's bluster. These are two politicians who prefer myth to fact, and neither could survive on the truth.

The Price

The War President

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 24, 2005

VIENNA

In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war" - but she made it clear that Mr. Bush was the exception. And she was right.

Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn't turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won't be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.

Let me talk briefly about what we now know about the decision to invade Iraq, then focus on why it matters.

The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there's plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.

And then there's the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister's meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and W.M.D. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn't get much clearer than that.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then some asserted that it was "old news" that Mr. Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that W.M.D. were just an excuse. No, it isn't. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn't inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they have never held Mr. Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. But they're wrong: it's crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.

Let me explain. The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.

On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.

We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that "fringe" now comprises much if not most of the population.

In a Gallup poll taken in early April - that is, before the release of the Downing Street Memo - 50 percent of those polled agreed with the proposition that the administration "deliberately misled the American public" about Iraq's W.M.D. In a new Rasmussen poll, 49 percent said that Mr. Bush was more responsible for the war than Saddam Hussein, versus 44 percent who blamed Saddam.

Once the media catch up with the public, we'll be able to start talking seriously about how to get out of Iraq.

During the run up to the war, I asked the liberal hawks, "What is it worth to you?" They'd read Kenan Makiya's book about how bad Saddam was and were ready to go to war to bring democracy to Iraq, but none of them could answer my question. "How many lives and how many dollars will you spend?" I got no answer.

sneezles

Stock News : Biotech/Pharmaceuticals Email This Story Print This Story

Gilead Seeks to End Roche Pact

By Althea Chang
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
6/23/2005 5:11 PM EDT

Gilead (GILD:Nasdaq - commentary - research) plans to split from its flu pill partner Roche for its "lack of commitment," the company said Thursday.

The Foster City, Calif., company said it wants to cut loose from its Swiss partner for breaching a 1996 agreement for the development and licensing of Tamiflu, an antiviral pill used to treat and prevent influenza. Gilead said it has sent Roche a notice of termination.

"Despite our repeated communication of concerns over the last several years," said Dr. John C. Martin, president and chief executive of Gilead, "Roche has not adequately demonstrated the requisite commitment to Tamiflu since its launch in the United States nearly six years ago, nor has it allocated the necessary resources to realize the potential of the product as a treatment and preventive for influenza."

Elsewhere, developing countries are stocking up on the antiviral drug, and last month, Roche quadrupled its production capacity, in case a human flu pandemic caused by evolving strains of the avian flu plaguing Asia should break out.

Gilead shares were up $1.43, or 3%, to $42.85 in after-hours trading.

Make this what you will. I merely note that the spring allergies have finally kicked in tonight and I'm a sneezing fool. Flu? Bring it on. It will be a relief to have some symptoms and take a day off. Hrmmph. I feel like crap and look worse.

That Covers It

The war memos and political shenanigans

Molly Ivins, Creators Syndicate
Published June 23, 2005

It was always weird that the White House kept saying it knew Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but it would never tell the UN inspectors where. Yes, I suspected all that, but I was not the head of British intelligence in the summer of 2002, for pity's sake.

Here are some aggravating factors. Thomas L. Friedman, columnist for the New York Times, recently wrote that "liberals" no longer want to talk about the war because we were against it to start with and probably hope it ends in disaster. Good Lord, who does he think we are? Does this man actually think we are out here cheering every time another American is killed?

Mr. Friedman, real, actual, honest-to-God American liberals are out here in the heartland, and we know the kids who are dying in Iraq. They are from our hometowns. We know their parents. That's why we hate this war. That's why we tried to tell everybody else it was a ghastly idea.

We are not sitting here gloating because it is the horrible mess we said it would be. We're in agony. There is nothing pleasurable about being a Cassandra. I have said from the beginning that if this thing worked out the way Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney all said it would, I would be perfectly happy to get down on my knees and kiss President Bush's feet.

The second aggravation is that the very prestigious papers that are now dismissing the Downing Street memos have already themselves admitted that their prewar coverage was--I don't know, you pick the adjective. Slack? Inadequate? Less than rigorous? Wrong? And now they're saying, "Oh, hell, this isn't news, we knew it all along."

Michael Kinsley, editorial and opinion editor at the Los Angeles Times, which has certainly done some commendable reporting on this war and taken the heat for it too, also dismisses the memos. I don't get it. You suddenly get evidence--I don't know if it proves or just strongly suggests--that this administration lied to all of us about war, and your reaction is not to go after the administration, but to dismiss the evidence? And to put down the people who are calling you screaming about why you haven't bothered to mention it? What is wrong with this picture?

Also aggravating, the Republicans in Congress refuse to allow hearings. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) held "Democratic hearings," without the R's, in a room described as a large closet, because they were not allowed to use an actual hearing room. Under these difficult circumstances, 30 Democratic representatives persisted in asking the important question, "Were Americans deliberately misled in the lead-up to this war?" When did we come to the point where the minority has no place?

I don't know if these memos represent an impeachable offense--although I must say, I don't want to bring up the Bill Clinton comparison again. But they strike me as a lot worse than anything Richard Nixon ever contemplated. He used the government for petty political vindictiveness.

Heck, I'd settle for that again, over what we're looking at now.

The irony of Deep Throat surfacing after all these years in the midst of this memo mess is almost too precious. Does The Washington Post have any hungry young reporters on Metro anymore? I'd say, start with: Who did Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service, meet with besides then-CIA Director George Tenet?

Gitmo, Round 2

It's not over:

UN investigators say U.S. stalling prison visits
Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:38 PM BST

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators on Thursday accused the United States of stalling on their request to visit foreign terror suspects at the U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.

The United States had not replied to a year-long request to probe "serious allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", arbitrary detention and violations of detainees' right to health and due process at Guantanamo.

"The lack of a definitive answer despite repeated requests suggests that the United States is not willing to cooperate with the United Nations human rights machinery on this issue," they said in a statement which pointedly declared that no state was above international human rights law.

Manfred Nowak, U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said he had received "numerous allegations of torture and ill-treatment" of detainees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba.

"At a certain point you have to take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by the government concerned," he told a news conference.

The fact the U.N. investigators had been denied access for so long was "an indication that there are certain conditions they want to hide from the public," he added.

Paul Hunt, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to physical and mental health, cited reports of a "worrying deterioration in the mental health of many detainees", dozens of suicide attempts and coercive interrogation methods including sleep deprivation.

Their request to visit all U.S.-held detainees abroad followed a scandal sparked by photographs taken in the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, showing inmates, some in hoods, being sexually humiliated by soldiers and intimidated with dogs.

Activists have expressed alarm that many people arrested since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on America have been held for more than three years without being charged, some incommunicado, in a legal black hole that they say facilitates mistreatment.

The U.N. investigators said they would conduct their own investigation on Guantanamo and draw up a report by year-end.

From Abroad

The Real News in the Downing Street Memos
By Michael Smith, Michael Smith writes on defense issues for the Sunday Times of London.

American media coverage of the Downing Street memo has largely focused on the assertion by Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, that war was seen as inevitable in Washington, where "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

But another part of the memo is arguably more important. It quotes British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the U.S. had already begun 'spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime." This we now realize was Plan B.

Put simply, U.S. aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.

British government figures for the number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq in 2002 show that although virtually none were used in March and April, an average of 10 tons a month were dropped between May and August.

But these initial "spikes of activity" didn't have the desired effect. The Iraqis didn't retaliate. They didn't provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed. So at the end of August, the allies dramatically intensified the bombing into what was effectively the initial air war.

The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq by allied aircraft shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone, with the increased rates continuing into 2003.

In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq.

The way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war is old news.

The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.

WaPo's Jefferson Morley gives a round-up of world press reaction to the Downing Street Memos:

"In one of the memos, British Foreign Office political director Peter Ricketts asks whether Bush administration had a clear and compelling military reason for war," Wagner wrote in a story picked up by the Times of India, the Winnepeg Sun and Xinhua, the Chinese news service.

"US scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al-Qaida is so far frankly unconvincing," Ricketts said in the memo. "For Iraq, 'regime change' does not stack up. It sounds like a grudge between Bush and Saddam."

Univision.com, Web site of the international Spanish-language TV network with a big U.S. audience, also picked up the story.

"What is surprising," said Washington correspondent Jorge Ramos Avalos, is "how little attention [the memo] has received in some of the most important news media in the United States despite its being an official document that contradicts the North American version of the beginning of the war."

"Taken together, these papers amount to an indictment of the way the British and American peoples were led to war," says columnist Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian.

Some in the American mainstream media, or MSM as bloggers call it, dispute that the Downing Street memo offers anything new that would change public understanding of the decision to go to war in Iraq.

"The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's prewar deliberations," declared the editorial page of The Washington Post last week. "Hearsay," said the Rocky Mountain News. And radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has suggested, without evidence, the documents may be forged. (In fact, The British government has not challenged the authenticity of any of the documents cited in recent news reports.)

But an increasing number of news editors are recognizing the newsworthiness of the DSM story. Newsday, the New York tabloid, picked up the AP story. The Houston Chronicle published DSM excerpts this week. So did the San Francisco Chronicle. The editors of the Detroit Free Press say the DSM story is "too significant to be dismissed as simply old news -- as the White House would like -- or left to historians."

These aren't the big-name national news organizations that bloggers call the MSM. But nor are they partisan liberal organs inclined to buy into fact-free theories. The interest of such regional mainstays of the MSM demonstrates how the Internet has transformed the news business.

Thousands of bloggers now do the sort of sifting and weighing and disseminating of information that was formerly the exclusive province of a relatively small group of media professionals concentrated in the East Coast. The growing DSM coverage, said the BBC this week, is a "bloggers' victory."

Local news editors can read the DSM documents and the original Times of London stories themselves. They might be persuaded by the reporting of The Post's Dana Milbank, who portrayed Rep. John Conyers's DSM hearings on Capitol Hill last week as an excursion into the "land of the make-believe." But with a click of the mouse they can go to the coverage of the same event in the Guardian of London and see the DSM story described as "tantamount to the first word of tapes in the Nixon White House during the Watergate scandal."

The point is not that either account has a monopoly on truth, but now there is another force that can help put a story on the news agenda.

Thanks to the global reach of the Internet, the two-month old scoop of a London daily continues to live in the American political debate and diverse areas of the media landscape.

Cognitive Dissonance

Iraq - the issue we have chosen to forget

By far the biggest casualties are Iraqis, particularly those who have enlisted in the security forces. As the Americans training them readily admit, the recruits have applied not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because in most parts of the country it is the only way to earn a living. And now the Iraqi government, under instruction from Washington, is poised to make matters worse with a plan for huge cuts in the public sector. Iraq has been told that it has to reduce public spending under a debt-reduction scheme sponsored by, you've guessed it, the International Monetary Fund. Given that the public sector accounts for about a half of the jobs anywhere in the country, any cuts will exacerbate social tensions. In the sweltering heat of an Iraqi summer, the suffering continues, with intermittent energy supplies, widespread health problems (including malnutrition among children) and a growing lack of safe drinking water and sanitation (40 per cent of Baghdad households report sewage on their streets). More than two years after the US rolled into Baghdad, it is a dismal stock-take for the Pax Americana.

Both sides are involved in a war of attrition, a war without end. US forces, now supported by British warplanes, make sporadic attacks on insurgent strongholds of devastating magnitude but dwindling effectiveness. The near destruction of Fallujah won them a few months of relative quiescence, at the expense of an estimated 700 deaths. Recently, it seems the insurgents have regained a foothold in the city. The aim of Operation Lightning around Baghdad and Operation Spear by the Syrian border is to "pacify" troublesome areas. The result of these actions is to stoke anger and increase the pool of young suicide bombers from which the various terrorist groups can now pick and choose.

The Americans long ago gave up any pretence at a hearts-and-minds strategy. Apart from the odd "spontaneous" conversation with a shopkeeper for the cameras, with heavy reinforcements at the ready, the US confines itself to brute force. About 60,000 Iraqis are now said to be held in detention centres, with fewer than a third of the detainees registered. The others have simply disappeared, with their relatives unable to contact them.

Military commanders are planning to relocate troops from Iraq's towns, moving them to four giant blast-proof bases. But, as the recent attacks on targets next to Baghdad's government and security "green zone" testify, nowhere is safe.

For the first time in a while, Iraq is beginning to flicker on the US political radar. A steady stream of documents in recent weeks has shown the extent to which Tony Blair and his advisers accepted in the summer of 2002 that George W Bush had committed to war, and how they set themselves the task of making the facts fit the political exigency, even though they knew that the Americans had made no preparation for a "protracted and costly" occupation.

The revelations have received considerable coverage in the serious segments of the US press. In the UK they have barely registered. On 30 May, the New Statesman disclosed "spikes" of bombardment by the British and US air forces designed to provoke Saddam Hussein into war nine months before actual hostilities began. With a few honourable exceptions, most UK media have done Blair's business for him. They have decreed the general election as the cut-off point for Iraq and decided that readers and viewers have "moved on".

Conspiracy? Laziness? Or, perhaps, the unfortunate reality is that in our minds we have raised the bar so high that only the most heinous acts or revelations have an effect. It seems that we are all unshockable now.

Reading this, while listening to Rummy and Myers offer their fairy tales to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, may cause my head to explode.

Saudi Terror Suspect Said Killed in Iraq

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 23, 2005

Filed at 9:08 a.m. ET

The bombings Wednesday and Thursday served as a chilling reminder of how potent militants remain in the capital despite around-the-clock patrols by American and Iraqi troops.

Most residents of the two Baghdad neighborhoods that were attacked are from Iraq's Shiite majority, while the insurgents are almost exclusively Sunni Arabs, a minority that dominated Iraq until Saddam Hussein's ouster two years ago.

The explosions both days were carried out at times when large crowds were on the capital's streets. Wednesday night's bombs came hours before an 11 p.m. curfew, when many residents are out at eateries or chatting on the streets before locking themselves inside their homes.

Thursday's twin explosions took place when many are just beginning their daily routines. Five police officers were among the 15 dead.

A young boy, his left leg missing from below the knee, sat on the sidewalk near a mangled bicycle, screaming as a man tried to comfort him. The force of the blasts blew off store shutters, and the surrounding sidewalks were covered with debris, including shattered glass, concrete slabs and charred vegetables and fruit.

Colonoscopy

Rummy and Myers are testifying before the Senate Armed Services committee today. I'll be watching on C-Span 3. You can watch the webcast here

Kristol Ball

via Suburban Guerrilla

The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol reads the tea leaves:

O'Connor, Not Rehnquist? And Gonzales to replace O'Connor? by William Kristol 06/22/2005 5:40:00 PM Warning: THIS IS SPECULATION. Obviously, I think it's somewhat well-informed speculation, or else I wouldn't be writing this. But it is speculation.

(1) There will be a Supreme Court resignation within the next week. But it will be Justice O'Connor, not Chief Justice Rehnquist. There are several tea-leaf-like suggestions that O'Connor may be stepping down, including the fact that she has apparently arranged to spend much more time in Arizona beginning this fall. There are also recent intimations that Chief Justice Rehnquist may not resign. This would be consistent with Justice O'Connor having confided her plan to step down to the chief a while ago. Rehnquist probably believes that it wouldn't be good for the Court to have two resignations at once, so he would presumably stay on for as long as his health permits, and/or until after Justice O'Connor's replacement is confirmed.

(2) President Bush will appoint Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to replace O'Connor. Bush certainly wants to put Gonzales on the Supreme Court. Presidents usually find a way to do what they want to do.

And his aides will have an argument to make to conservatives (like me) who would be unhappy with a Gonzales pick: Bush would not, after all, be replacing a conservative stalwart like Rehnquist with Gonzales. Gonzales would be taking O'Connor's seat, and Gonzales is likely to be as conservative as, or even more conservative than, O'Connor. Indeed, Karl Rove will continue, Gonzales is as conservative a nominee to replace O'Connor as one could find who could overcome

a threatened Democratic filibuster. Bush aides will also assure us privately that when Rehnquist does step down, Bush will nominate a strong conservative as his replacement. They might not tell us that nominee would be as an associate justice, for Bush would plan to then promote Gonzales to chief justice--thus creating a "Gonzales Court," a truly distinctive Bush legacy.

A Gonzales nomination would, in my view, virtually forfeit any chance in the near term for a fundamental reversal in the downward drift of American constitutional jurisprudence. But I now think it is more likely than not to happen.

Rank speculation, but Kristol is a Repub insider.

Psy-Ops

Flight 15 to Basra: Few Perks, but No Bombs. No Complaints.

By EDWARD WONG
Published: June 23, 2005

ABOARD FLIGHT 15, over southern Iraq - The smiling flight attendants strode down the aisle of the Boeing 727 in crisp green uniforms, handing out cold cans of soda and pieces of cake.

Iraqi officials say the flight is a crucial step in restoring an air network that was ravaged by the economic sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

But it was more than just the food service, a throwback to another age of aviation, that brought a sense of relief to the passengers.

Just minutes earlier, the plane had leveled off after a steep corkscrew ascent from Baghdad International Airport. It was cruising now at 23,000 feet. In one piece.

No smoke trails from surface-to-air missiles, no rocket attacks, no mortar hits.

"The flight will be good, God willing," Awadees Razoiam, 55, an oil geologist, said as he bit into his cake.

Such is the scene aboard the Iraqi equivalent of the New York-to-Washington shuttle - a 55-minute hop between Baghdad and the southern oil city of Basra that costs $75 for a one-way coach ticket. The flight, begun this month, is the first domestic service operated by state-owned Iraqi Airways since the American-led invasion.

There are no frequent-flier benefits and no free newspapers at the gate. But the flight allows quick and safe passage (relatively speaking) between the capital and the city at the heart of Iraq's economy, making it perhaps the most significant in-country transportation development since the war.

Jets carry travelers over a parched landscape containing some of the most dangerous terrain in the country: over the insurgent-dominated area south of Baghdad known as the Triangle of Death; over swaths of marshlands plagued by bandits; over the roadways in the south, where radical Shiite fighters plant bombs to ambush British Army convoys.

There is little to love about the six-hour drive between Baghdad and Basra, Mr. Razoiam said. "You have to hide all your money and all your jewels."

Iraqi officials say the flight is a crucial step in restoring an air network that was ravaged by the economic sanctions imposed after the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

Residents of Basra, a relatively safe city of at least two million that is the second-largest in Iraq, also boast that the new route could herald the rebirth of the city as a Middle East aviation hub. Because Baghdad is steeped in violence, they say, business people and tourists will want to fly into Basra instead. Iraqi Airways officials say they hope to start direct flights between Basra and London by the end of the summer.

From 1932 to 1964, Al Maaqal Airport in Basra, built by the British in the twilight of empire, served as the main commercial airport in Iraq and a major regional hub, with Trans World Airlines and others touching down there on a traverse of Asia, said Ibrahim Abid Ali, an airport manager and air traffic controller. But in 1964, the national government ordered international flights to go through Baghdad instead. Befitting its colonial past, Al Maaqal now serves as a base for the British Army, charged with controlling southern Iraq.

Iraqi Airways operates out of a relatively new site, Basra International Airport, lined with Italian marble and completed by German engineers in 1987. It was inaugurated with an Iraqi Airways flight to Asia. But most flights were grounded by the sanctions of the 1990's, and it was not until 2001, after other Middle Eastern airlines had already defied the United Nations by flying into Baghdad, that Iraqi Airways began regular daily flights between Baghdad and Basra.

The British military occupies half the main terminal of the new airport but is expected to leave this fall. The American government has already hired contractors to begin renovating the airport and expects to spend at least $40 million on the project.

"The opening of Basra airport gives us a lot of optimism," said Muhammad al-Waeli, the governor of Basra Province, referring to the airport's reopening this month. "It will help bring investment and capital to our city. It's a safe airport, safer than Baghdad."

Um, you can't get to the airport in Baghdad without thousands of dollars of hired security guards for the ride, so I don't really know what the value of a $75 shuttle flight to Basra means.

The Times and Ed Wong have bought a deft piece of propaganda from the Pentagon. The notions of crisp flight uniforms and cold cans of soda against 130 degree Babylonian summer do jar. It's a pretty picture and very little else.

Avian Influenza Web Resources - for those interested

I fully understand that not all Bumpers are as focused on tracking the avian influenza issue as Melanie and myself.

But for those interested, I've made a desultory search for blogs and web pages covering the H5N1 issue to a greater or lesser extent. I've uncovered the odd one or two.

Recombinomics | Elegant Evolution
Dr. Henry Niman's blog. Take-no-prisoners virology from the front lines.

Daily HealthCast
The successor to John Hart's blog.

H5N1
A blog dedicated to coverage of the developing Asian influenza issue.

The Coming Influenza Pandemic?
Another dedicated H5N1 news blog.

EPIDEMIca // H5N1 // M-J Milloy
Yet another blog focused on H5N1 news.

Effect Measure
A general epidemiology news blog hosted by a group of physicians writing under the collective pen name "Revere". Strong focus on H5N1. The editorials do not pull any punches at all. "Revere" is an appropriate nom-de-guerre.

Biopeer: Avian Flu (H5N1)
The H5N1 section of a general life sciences news blog.

Cold and Flu Blog
A blog as informative about sniffles as about the Real Bad Stuff.

InfluenzaPandemic - AndyPryke.com
Not a blog. But just chock full of background data, together with an influenza chronology spanning more than 2000 years. Absolutely priceless.

CIDRAP >> Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Not a blog. Out of the University of Minnesota. Cutting-edge news is posted here.

Main ProMED-mail
"ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases." Not a blog. Infectious disease news, culled from just about everywhere.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The home page of the CDC. This should be an authoritative site. But director Dr. Julie Gerberding is a Bushco appointee. Sigh.

WHO | Avian influenza
The World Health Organization's Avian Influenza page. Tracks H5N1 worldwide through the eyes of the WHO.

Melanie adds: The new Avian Influenza wiki will go live on Monday. I'll give you the URL as we get there.

12 and 12 moment

War and Weakness

By RICHARD A. CLARKE
Published: June 19, 2005

In Washington, people in government often communicate with one another and with the public in guarded, even coded statements. The mass media seldom detect, note or explain these messages. Lately one of those messages has been coming from senior American military officials, both on and off the record. Their message, decrypted, is that things in Iraq are not going well and may not do so for a while. Their corollary charge is that the American military has been seriously damaged. Skip to next paragraph Anthony Russo

The top man in the military is about to retire. Perhaps sensing the freedom of speech that comes with retirement, Gen. Richard B. Myers has let slip two interesting observations. First, he noted that the insurgency is about as strong now as it was a year ago. At a second appearance, he noted that insurgencies like the one in Iraq have lasted 7 to 12 years. It's not hard to see the message that we may well be fighting in Iraq in 2012, at the end of the next president's first term.

Although official administration spokesmen have for some time been saying things like ''We have turned a corner in Iraq'' or ''We have broken the back of the insurgency'' or ''The insurgents are in a last-gasp campaign,'' the truth seems to be otherwise. A brief quiet followed the Iraqi election, but it has been broken by a sustained round of insurgent attacks. Iraqi civilian casualties in May were up by 33 percent over April, while Iraqi police deaths were up 75 percent over the same period. American military dead in Iraq more than doubled last month over the lull in March. Because the need for large numbers of troops there has remained much longer than originally planned (some reports suggest that Pentagon civilian planners anticipated a force of only 30,000 by 2004; we now have more than four times that number in Iraq), many of the active-duty Army units in Iraq are on their second deployments.

In addition to the thousands of American and Iraqi casualties, one victim of this slow bleeding in Iraq is the American military as an institution. Across America, the National Guard, designed to assist civil authorities in domestic crises (like the pandemic of a lethal avian flu that some public-health planners fear), is in tatters. Re-enlistments are down, training for domestic support missions is spotty at best, equipment is battered and many units are either in Iraq or on their way to or from it. Now the rot is beginning to spread into the regular Army. Recruiters are coming up dry, and some, under pressure to produce new troops, have reportedly been complicit in suspect applications.

The implications for the all-volunteer military are significant. With almost every unit in the Army on the conveyor belt into and out of Iraq, few units are really combat-ready for other missions. If the North Korean regime that is often called crazy were to roll its huge army the few kilometers into South Korea, significant American reinforcements would be a long time coming. This raises the possibility that the United States may have to resort to nuclear weapons to stop the North Koreans, as has been contemplated with increasing seriousness since the last Nuclear Posture Review in 2002.

The Army is already the smallest it has been since the Second World War. If the current trend in volunteering for the Army continues for long, the Pentagon may have to consider disbanding units or requesting the reinstatement of the draft. Most military experts consider either option to be a disaster for the Army as an institution, reducing its currently limited capabilities.

By the end of President Bush's term, the war in Iraq could end up costing $600 billion, more than six times what some administration officials had projected. Now the many other costs are also beginning to become clearer.

Maybe it is time to at least begin a public dialogue about ''staying the course.'' Opponents of an ''early'' departure of American forces say it would result in chaos in Iraq. Yet we already have chaos, and how sure can we be that sectarian fighting will not follow our departure whenever we leave? Is it unpatriotic to ask if the major reason for the fighting in Iraq is that we are still there?

It's a hoary old case of 12-Step wisdom: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a new result is madness. Maybe it is time to try something else.

Single-tasking

A Moment to Seize With North Korea

By Donald Gregg and Don Oberdorfer

Wednesday, June 22, 2005; Page A21

In efforts to reassure North Korea, the United States has repeatedly declared that it recognizes North Korean sovereignty, has no hostile intent and is willing to arrange security guarantees and move toward normal relations with Pyongyang once the nuclear issue is resolved. Kim's remarks present a golden opportunity to take the U.S. offers to the one and only person in North Korea who has the power of decision. According to those who have met him personally in the past -- including former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former South Korean president Kim Dae Jung and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi -- Kim is more flexible than anyone else in his government. That is not surprising, since he sets the line and others must follow.

As we well know, this is not the first time that Kim has sought engagement rather than hostility with President Bush, whom he discussed in surprisingly positive terms last Friday. During a visit we made to Pyongyang in November 2002 following a nuclear-related trip by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, we were given a written personal message from Kim to Bush declaring: "If the United States recognizes our sovereignty and assures non-aggression, it is our view that we should be able to find a way to resolve the nuclear issue in compliance with the demands of a new century." Further, he declared, "If the United States makes a bold decision, we will respond accordingly."

We took the message to senior officials at the White House and State Department and urged the administration to follow up on Kim's initiative, which we have not made public until now. Then deep in secret planning and a campaign of public persuasion for the invasion of Iraq, the administration spurned engagement with North Korea. Kim moved within weeks to expel the inspectors from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reopen the plutonium-producing facilities that had been shut down since 1994 under an agreement negotiated with the Clinton administration.

Now the North Koreans are believed to have produced the raw material for at least a half-dozen nuclear weapons and many believe their claim to have fabricated the weapons themselves. Early this year North Korea declared that it has become "a full-fledged nuclear weapons state" and that it is working to produce still more atomic arms, all in response to U.S. hostility.

Kim's statements in Pyongyang Friday may be a sign that he is uncomfortable with persistent pressure from the United States and his Asian neighbors to return to the six-nation talks, which he left a year ago. He may also be feeling the pinch of deepening food shortages in his country. By reversing his nuclear program in return for the guarantees he seeks, Kim could avert stronger measures being discussed in Washington and other capitals to force the issue. These measures, in our judgment, promise only greater confrontation and growing danger on all sides.

By visiting Pyongyang and engaging Kim, Rice would not be condoning North Korea's human rights practices. The State Department has made clear that human rights is an issue to be resolved in negotiations on establishing full U.S. relations, not in talks on the nuclear question. If she responds to Kim's latest statements with a well-prepared visit and successful negotiations, Rice will have earned her spurs as America's chief diplomat.

Very little danger of that, I think. This crew cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

Sufferage

Extending Democracy to Ex-Offenders

Published: June 22, 2005

The laws that strip ex-offenders of the right to vote across the United States are the shame of the democratic world. Of an estimated five million Americans who were barred from voting in the last presidential election, a majority would have been able to vote if they had been citizens of countries like Britain, France, Germany or Australia. Many nations take the franchise so seriously that they arrange for people to cast ballots while being held in prison. In the United States, by contrast, inmates can vote only in two states, Maine and Vermont.

This distinctly American bias - which extends to jobs, housing and education - keeps even law- abiding ex-offenders confined to the margins of society, where they have a notoriously difficult time building successful lives. A few states, at least, are beginning to grasp this point. Some are reconsidering postprison sanctions, including laws that bar ex-offenders from the polls.

This is a particular hobby horse of mine. It makes no sense at all to me to lose the most fundamental right of citizenship because of a prison sentence. This amounts to a lifetime sentence, regardless of how much time a person has actually done.

Drilling the West

Here's why those environmentally unfriendly judges are important...to Republicans.

Drilling in West Pits Republican Policy Against Republican Base
Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

A natural gas compression station and drilling rig below the Roan Plateau in Colorado. Some residents are fighting the drilling leases.

By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: June 22, 2005

RIFLE, Colo., June 15 - As a sometime carpenter, Keith Goddard has all the work he can handle in this place where new houses rise with the sun and a gas well is poked into the ground just about every other day.

Linn Blancett, a rancher, standing by a patch of ground he said had been contaminated by oil. Mr. Blancett and his wife have filed suit.

But Mr. Goddard is worried sick. From his backyard here on Colorado's West Slope, he can see the little bit of unspoiled paradise left in this valley, the high, green top of the Roan Plateau. That piece of public land is where he goes to make his living in the fall, as a hunting guide. Energy companies want to drill on it.

"It's crazy what's going on," said Mr. Goddard, who has a face deeply reddened by the mountain sun.

Mr. Goddard, who says he is a political independent, has organized hunters to protest government plans for introducing gas wells into grazing areas for deer and elk. "I'm not against oil and gas development," he said, "but when you put wells in every 20 acres, that means you're no longer managing public lands for the public anymore."

Amid the clank, clatter and fire of the largest natural gas boom ever on public land in the West, a new kind of sagebrush rebellion is stirring. Ranchers, cowboys, small property owners and local government leaders - the core of the Republican base in the Rocky Mountain West - are chafing at the pace and scope of the Bush administration's push for energy development.

Some people are filing lawsuits, challenging federal authority to drill in certain areas. Others are protesting new gas and oil leases. Federal officials say they have received thousands of letters opposed to drilling in areas like the Roan Plateau. One state, Wyoming, has passed legislation giving landowners more say in how mineral rights beneath their property are tapped.

The battle cry is the same as in past movements: a call for local control over a distant federal landlord. But for the first time, it is the Republicans who find themselves the target of angry speeches about lost property rights and tone-deaf federal land managers. And people who have been on opposing sides of the major land battles in the West - mainly property owners and ranchers versus environmentalists - are now allies.

"The word from Washington is drill, drill, drill, and now they've basically destroyed our ranch," said Tweeti Blancett, a coordinator for George Bush's presidential campaign in San Juan County, N.M. "We've been in a firestorm down here. A lot of Republicans are upset."

The 32,000 acres of public land that Ms. Blancett and her husband, Linn, have long used for grazing cattle is now riddled with gas wells and pipelines. Petroleum byproducts have poisoned the water, she said, killing animals and causing the fertility rate to plummet.

The couple has hired Karen Budd-Falen, one of the best-known lawyers in fights over federal land policies. They have sued to try to force the federal Bureau of Land Management to clean up the land. Ms. Budd-Falen got her start working against environmental restrictions with the Mountain States Legal Foundation, an intellectual incubator for such property rights stalwarts as James Watt, the former interior secretary under President Ronald Reagan.

Add this to the coming fights over water rights and you've got interesting possibilities for litigation.

Planning

This is the most extensive article to appear so far in the secular media, which may mean that they are starting to take it seriously. Dr. Osterholm is treating some of the macro, societal issues in this piece. The new Flu Wiki, which I will be writing and editing with Revere and DemFromCT will treat some of those issues, as well as what to do at both the personal and community level. This is important: it is off the screens of our local politicians right now and it is going to be up to us to overcome their denial and force them to begin to do some planning.

Preparing for the Next Pandemic
By MICHAEL T. OSTERHOLM

From the July/August 2005 issue of Foreign Affairs.

Michael T. Osterholm is Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, Associate Director of the Department of Homeland Security's National Center for Food Protection and Defense, and Professor at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health.

The world must form a better understanding of the potential for the emergence of a pandemic influenza strain. A pandemic is coming. It could be caused by H5N1 or by another novel strain. It could happen tonight, next year, or even ten years from now.

The signs are alarming: the number of human and animal H5N1 infections has been increasing; small clusters of cases have been documented, suggesting that the virus may have come close to sustained human-to-human transmission; and H5N1 continues to evolve in the virtual genetic reassortment laboratory provided by the unprecedented number of people, pigs, and poultry in Asia. The population explosion in China and other Asian countries has created an incredible mixing vessel for the virus. Consider this sobering information: the most recent influenza pandemic, of 1968-69, emerged in China, when its population was 790 million; today it is 1.3 billion. In 1968, the number of pigs in China was 5.2 million; today it is 508 million. The number of poultry in China in 1968 was 12.3 million; today it is 13 billion. Changes in other Asian countries are similar. Given these developments, as well as the exponential growth in foreign travel over the past 50 years, an influenza pandemic could be more devastating than ever before.

Can disaster be avoided? The answer is a qualified yes. Although a coming pandemic cannot be avoided, its impact can be considerably lessened. It depends on how the leaders of the world -- from the heads of the G-8 to local officials -- decide to respond. They must recognize the economic, security, and health threat that the next influenza pandemic poses and invest accordingly. Each leader must realize that even if a country has enough vaccine to protect its citizens, the economic impact of a worldwide pandemic will inflict substantial pain on everyone. The resources required to prepare adequately will be extensive. But they must be considered in light of the cost of failing to invest: a global world economy that remains in a shambles for several years.

This is a critical point in history. Time is running out to prepare for the next pandemic. We must act now with decisiveness and purpose. Someday, after the next pandemic has come and gone, a commission much like the 9/11 Commission will be charged with determining how well government, business, and public health leaders prepared the world for the catastrophe when they had clear warning. What will be the verdict?

Open Thread

The monthly meeting of my spiritual directors peer group is this morning. I'll be away until after lunch. Use this as an open thread. Guest posters, the house is yours.

Retiring Diplomatically

Time to Bolt

Two months ago, we urged John Bolton to step aside to allow President Bush to appoint someone else as ambassador to the United Nations. With the Republican failure on Monday to gather enough Senate votes to force a vote on his nomination, Bolton would do his nation, and his president, a big favor by heeding our advice.

The brinksmanship over the Bolton nomination is one of those Washington battles that acquires a life of its own, until the principals step back and scratch their heads, wondering: "How did we get to this point?"

After all, in the halcyon days of the transition between the first and second Bush terms, the administration made it known that it wanted a kinder, gentler diplomacy. Incoming Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was applauded by the likes of this editorial page for choosing Robert B. Zoellick, a pragmatic negotiator, over Bolton, the indefatigable ideologue, as her deputy secretary.

Trouble is, Bush decided that the United Nations would be a pleasant, face-saving posting for Bolton, the influential neocon who served most recently as undersecretary of State for arms control. But as the disclosures emerged about Bolton's past bullying of subordinates and manipulation of intelligence, many senators rightly concluded that he is unfit to represent the U.S. in the world's premier multilateral forum.

So positions hardened in a capital primed to turn even minor squabbles into epic confrontations that no side can presumably afford to lose. What started as an effort to simply get Bolton out of the State Department has turned into a ridiculous fight between a president who claims Bolton is the indispensable reformer the U.N. needs, and Democrats who either argue that he is not qualified or want to see every last file on him before declaring him unqualified.

This page has argued that the Senate should abolish the filibuster, but it's unhealthy for America's representative at the U.N. to lack bipartisan support. A resigned Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist first indicated on Tuesday that he saw no way for the White House to prevail, other than by making Bolton a recess appointment, which would only compound the mess by sending to the U.N. an emissary who couldn't even get approved by his own government.

Later in the day, after meeting with the president, Frist changed his tune, saying Bush wanted a vote on the nomination. This sounds like we're in for more brinksmanship, maybe even the decisive showdown on the filibuster, all at a terrible cost to the nation's diplomacy. Unless, that is, Bolton calls a halt to the madness and beats a retreat to the conservative think tank of his choice.

Bolton is a former director of the Project for a New American Century and I imagine that they or the equally neocon American Enterprise Institute could find a desk and a salary for him.

Legacy

Here's something I didn't notice in .Liz Bumuller's Sunday story on the Supremes:

At the White House, the plan is to run the campaign for Mr. Bush's Supreme Court nominee out of the office of Harriet Miers, the low-profile White House counsel, once described by Mr. Bush as "a pit bull in Size 6 shoes." Ms. Miers will get a heavy assist from the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice, where the attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, has himself been widely mentioned as a candidate for the Supreme Court, although probably not for the first vacancy under Mr. Bush.

In the meantime, Republicans close to the preparations say that the White House has assembled research on some 20 Supreme Court candidates, with more intensive research on a handful of the most mentioned, all federal appellate judges and all conservative: J. Michael Luttig and J. Harvie Wilkinson III of Virginia, Michael W. McConnell of Colorado, John G. Roberts Jr. of the District of Columbia, Samuel A. Alito Jr. of New Jersey and Emilio M. Garza of Texas.The White House also plans mock hearings in which the nominee will field aggressive questions from a "murder board," or a phalanx of lawyers and administration officials playing senators on the Judiciary Committee. Such hearings were conducted for Mr. Thomas and have even been conducted for some of the current administration's appellate court nominees, like Mr. McConnell.

The White House plans to name a point person to manage the process and to create an additional war room on Capitol Hill, in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Specter or Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee and a Texas Republican. Mr. Cornyn's name was recently floated by conservatives as a long-shot possibility for the court; last week he said that it might be better for Mr. Bush to announce his nominee in September and not leave the person "hanging out like a piñata for people to take a whack at during the month we're in recess."

This all matches the talk I'm hearing, including the September appointment, which would push the Senate to shorten the confirmation process to get the nominee seated by the beginning of the October 3 beginning of the SCOTUS term.

So, no, don't expect a moderate and expect a bruising fight.

A Thoughtless War

War and Weakness

By RICHARD A. CLARKE
Published: June 19, 2005

Although official administration spokesmen have for some time been saying things like ''We have turned a corner in Iraq'' or ''We have broken the back of the insurgency'' or ''The insurgents are in a last-gasp campaign,'' the truth seems to be otherwise. A brief quiet followed the Iraqi election, but it has been broken by a sustained round of insurgent attacks. Iraqi civilian casualties in May were up by 33 percent over April, while Iraqi police deaths were up 75 percent over the same period. American military dead in Iraq more than doubled last month over the lull in March. Because the need for large numbers of troops there has remained much longer than originally planned (some reports suggest that Pentagon civilian planners anticipated a force of only 30,000 by 2004; we now have more than four times that number in Iraq), many of the active-duty Army units in Iraq are on their second deployments.

In addition to the thousands of American and Iraqi casualties, one victim of this slow bleeding in Iraq is the American military as an institution. Across America, the National Guard, designed to assist civil authorities in domestic crises (like the pandemic of a lethal avian flu that some public-health planners fear), is in tatters. Re-enlistments are down, training for domestic support missions is spotty at best, equipment is battered and many units are either in Iraq or on their way to or from it. Now the rot is beginning to spread into the regular Army. Recruiters are coming up dry, and some, under pressure to produce new troops, have reportedly been complicit in suspect applications.

The implications for the all-volunteer military are significant. With almost every unit in the Army on the conveyor belt into and out of Iraq, few units are really combat-ready for other missions. If the North Korean regime that is often called crazy were to roll its huge army the few kilometers into South Korea, significant American reinforcements would be a long time coming. This raises the possibility that the United States may have to resort to nuclear weapons to stop the North Koreans, as has been contemplated with increasing seriousness since the last Nuclear Posture Review in 2002.

The Army is already the smallest it has been since the Second World War. If the current trend in volunteering for the Army continues for long, the Pentagon may have to consider disbanding units or requesting the reinstatement of the draft. Most military experts consider either option to be a disaster for the Army as an institution, reducing its currently limited capabilities.

By the end of President Bush's term, the war in Iraq could end up costing $600 billion, more than six times what some administration officials had projected. Now the many other costs are also beginning to become clearer.

Maybe it is time to at least begin a public dialogue about ''staying the course.'' Opponents of an ''early'' departure of American forces say it would result in chaos in Iraq. Yet we already have chaos, and how sure can we be that sectarian fighting will not follow our departure whenever we leave? Is it unpatriotic to ask if the major reason for the fighting in Iraq is that we are still there?

It's time to go. We should never have been there in the first place, we have no strategy so we have no exit strategy.

None in the Streets

No One to Demonize

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, June 22, 2005; Page A21

In the absence of an antiwar movement, the American people have turned against the war in Iraq. Those two facts, I suspect, are connected.

There was a very real antiwar movement early on. In the months before, during and immediately after our invasion, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to oppose the intervention. Then chaos, followed by insurgency, enveloped Iraq, and the need for a constable to restore some order became indisputable. Those who had opposed the war -- this columnist included -- argued that the occupation would be less of a lightning rod if conducted by an international force under U.N. aegis. But the Bush administration insisted on U.S. control (a decision that grows less explicable with each passing day), and other nations with real armies made clear that they wanted no part of what was becoming a bloody occupation.

Confronted with a choice between U.S. occupation and chaos, millions of Americans -- chiefly liberals and Democrats -- who'd been against the war decided to give occupation a chance. In the streets, demonstrations dwindled; in Congress, Democrats (save for a handful) did not call for withdrawal. With unprecedented discipline, Democrats who had opposed the war lined up behind the candidacy of John Kerry, whose position on the war was muddled at best. The question of the occupation fell off the liberal agenda. At the Take Back America conference, a national gathering of liberals held this month, the issue barely came up at all.

In Iraq, however, the situation clarified. What had looked like a choice between occupation and mayhem was something even grimmer: The mayhem proceeds, and will proceed, occupation or no. It will doubtless grow worse if we pull up stakes, but our presence has failed to guarantee stability in politics or daily life. More than two years after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled, the drive from downtown Baghdad to the airport is still a crapshoot with death.

Absent a discernible trajectory of progress, the American people are giving up on the occupation. In last week's CBS News/New York Times poll, 59 percent of respondents said the war was going badly, and just 37 percent approved of President Bush's handling of Iraq. A Gallup poll showed six in 10 Americans favoring full or partial withdrawal of U.S. forces.

These figures already match the polling in the middle and late years of the war in Vietnam -- even though that war was fought with vastly higher casualties and a conscript army. In a series of polls taken in November and December of 1969, the Gallup Organization found that 49 percent of Americans favored a withdrawal of U.S. forces and 78 percent believed that the Nixon administration's rate of withdrawal was "too slow." But there was one other crucial finding: 77 percent disapproved of the antiwar demonstrations, which were then at their height.

That disapproval was key to Nixon's political strategy. He didn't so much defend the war as attack its critics, making common cause with what he termed the "silent majority" against a mainstream movement with a large, raucous and sometimes senseless fringe. When Nixon won reelection in a landslide, it was clear that the strategy had worked -- and it has been fundamental Republican strategy ever since. Though the public sides with the Democrats on more key issues than it does with Republicans, it's Republicans who have won more elections, in good measure because the GOP has raised its ad hominem attacks on Democrats' character and patriotism to a science.

Which is why, however perverse this may sound, the absence of an antiwar movement is proving to be a huge political problem for the Bush administration, and why the Republicans are reduced to trying to turn Dick Durbin, who criticized our policies at Guantanamo Bay, into some enemy of the people. The administration has no one to demonize. With nobody blocking the troop trains, military recruitment is collapsing of its own accord. With nobody in the streets, the occupation is being judged on its own merits.

I doubt that this is the whole truth, but it is a piece of the larger picture.

Summer Salad

I have a brunch meeting in the morning so posting will be light until afternoon. Here is my contribution to the menu, a salad

For the record, for eight

Baby spinach leaves, 8 Oz
6 Oz blue cheese
4 Oz walnuts crumbled, do this with your hands, it is far better than chopping

Toss with an excellent vinaigrette

2 tblsp apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tblsp water
1/3 tsp fresh oregano
1/3 tsp fresh basil

Much Freshly Ground black pepper
A grind of salt.

Combine the spinach, cheese and walnuts. Chop the herbs finely and add to the oil and vinegar and shake in a covered container and let sit for several hours in the fridge. Dress the greens with the dressing and toss well. There should be no slick on the bottom of the salad bowl. Offer sea salt and ground black pepper to each diner.

Growing Threat: A Modest Proposal

This is a coda to Melanie's Growing Threat article which was posted earlier today.

Modest Proposal

A more-than-viable option is to run Linux, behind a proper firewall.

99.9999% of the virus and spyware threats out there, modulo tracking cookies, are aimed at the Windows platform specifically, and get no traction at all on other operating systems. A Windows .exe *cannot* run on a Linux system unless a Windows emulator such as WINE is up. And even then, it's sandboxed.

This is not simply because Windows is more prevalent. The security model Linux is built upon, while less than perfect, is far and away better than the security model used for Windows, in many, many ways.

Both SuSE and Mandrake ship with the default graphical user interface set to KDE. This is a highly mature and intuitive interface. Unless you elect to geek out, you need never ever deal with command line. I have found the GUI to be at least as intuitive as Windows.

Online documentation is miles better than what Windows has or is ever likely to have.

If you have data on NTFS formatted disks, recent versions of both Mandrake and SuSE can mount these and manage data just as if you were using Windows.

OpenOffice has developed to the point where it is truly compatible with MSOffice. The 2.0beta version ships with SuSE 9.3, which, in my humble opinion, is a good place to start. In case you are wondering about ease of use or backward compatibility with MSOffice, this has already been studied. As the Slashdot link will explain, OpenOffice is the clear winner. Schools are dumping MSOffice in favor of OpenOffice, retaining MSOffice only when middleware requires it.

Both SuSE and Mandrake ship with a vast plethora of tools and tool alternatives. Load everything and you're going to put a strain on an 18 GB system disk.

Another nice thing. Tools to both harden the OS against intrusion and perform network security audits of other systems in your trusted network ship with most versions of Linux, and specifically with Mandrake and SuSE. I'm not guessing. I've used both, recently.

If you feel in the least bit uneasy with the normal levels of security built into the original OS, the SELinux (Security Enhanced Linux) patches are now incorporated into vanilla kernels at version 2.6 and higher. SELinux is what the NSA thinks Linux should look like. Amazingly enough, considering the NSA is part of the intelligence community, these enhancements were developed completely within the Open Source Linux tradition. Hence, independent source code review is not only possible, but has been performed multiple times. Forget about your kernel "calling home" to Langley. Ain't gonna happen. SELinux: NSA's Open Source Security Enhanced Linux willl brief you on it's ins and outs.

Both Mandrake and SuSE will offer to set up a strong default "iptables" firewall at install time. I should add that this firewall is lightyears stronger than Windows Internet Connection Firewall will ever be. Forget "ipfilter", which also ships. It's not nearly as strong.

For those who both want to tweak the configuration and do not want to deal with the iptables command language, may I introduce the Firewall Builder GUI. You don't need to compile diddly. Just go to the download page, download the proper rpms for your version, install using the GUI, and you should be good.

Note to the geek-challenged: Stick with something intuitive. I keep mentioning SuSE and Mandrake because those are my picks, both for ease of installation and ease of use, in that order. Mess with Debian or Gentoo and you'll likely go nuts.

Linux Security Caveat

Every Linux that ever shipped is set up to provide multiple network services, like http (web server), smtp (mail server), ftpd (ftp server), etc. Every single one of these services is a security vulnerability, and if you intend your system for client use only, like most of us do, just turn them off. No worries, Bastille Linux ships with both Mandrake and SuSE, and will walk you through this, and many other "hardening" steps to help protect your system. Nothing like this exists in the MS world.

Better Firewall

If you want a stronger firewall between your trusted network and the Internet, allow me to introduce OpenBSD. If you don't want to delve into the fiddlin' details of the pf command language, the Firewall Builder GUI works just as well in an OpenBD/pf environment as it does with Linux. Note. OpenBSD is the only general purpose OS out there with a secure default install.

There are books that can walk you through installation and configuration. I will list them in the order of my recommendation.

Absolute OpenBSD: UNIX for the Practical Paranoid, Michael Lucas. This is the best book on the market for a newbie who just wants to get a home/small business OpenBSD firewall up, soonest. The Appendices are priceless; they decipher all the cryptic device drivers that are the legacy of all the BSDs. The native (and oh, so strong) pf firewall is covered in more than adequate detail. Here is the errata page.

Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF, 2nd Edition, Jacek Artymiak. This book will tell you absolutely everything you will ever want to know about building OpenBSD firewalls. It will tell you curst little else, past the install. It seems to be aimed at folks trying to protect the enterprise.

Secure Architectures with OpenBSD, Brandon Palmer, Jose Nazario. This is a good book for someone who wants to install a web server or a DNS server or somesuch on an OpenBSD box. A good book for a general OpenBSD system administrator. A poor book for everyone else. The firewall command language is not covered as well as in the previous two offerings.

You have choices

My basic point: You have choices, even if you are not a complete geek. And when you migrate to one of these choices, your virus/spyware worries go bye-bye.

Peace does not make good video

I'm convinced that is why the media supported the war. For cool pictures of stuff blowing up.

And the Administration paid them well, with the embedded reporting opportunities.

Why was Monica big news? Because it was an excellent excuse to present porn (lame porn, but porn nonetheless) as news. An excuse to use the words "oral sex" pretty much every day for a couple of years.

Why all the stories about pretty white women being kidnapped? Because pretty white women look good on screen.

The old "if it bleeds it leads" rule doesn't exactly translate to video. But a similar one does. It all comes down to the visual. A story that comes with good video, or good video opportunity, will always beat one without, regardless of the relative significance of the stories.

The only exception seems to be protests. Those should get more coverage based on visual interest. But then, crowds are kind of boring to look at, and the production values of street theater maybe aren't up to broadcast standards.

Pushing Buttons

Frist Reverses Himself, Pushes Bolton Vote

By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; 2:30 PM

WASHINGTON -- Reversing field after a meeting with President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he will continue pushing for a floor vote on John R. Bolton for U.N. ambassador. Frist switched his position after initially saying Tuesday that negotiations with Democrats to get a vote on Bolton had been exhausted.

Talking to reporters in the White House driveway after he joined other GOP lawmakers for a luncheon with Bush, Frist said: "The president made it very clear that he expects an up or down vote."

Just about two hours hour earlier, Frist said he wouldn't schedule another vote on Bolton's nomination and said that Bush must decide the next move. Frist, R-Tenn., had said there was nothing further he could do to break a Democratic stalemate with the Bush White House over Bolton, an outspoken conservative who, opponents argue, would undermine U.S. interests at the world body.

But he changed his tune after talking to Bush.

Frist's abrupt public turnabout underscored the political pressures that the long-running battle over Bolton have heaped upon himself and Bush.

Six months into his final term in office, Bush is struggling to avoid the perception of a weakened lame duck at a time when his proposal for revamping Social Security has made little progress and some lawmakers are calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq. Frist has lost control of the Republican-run Senate in recent weeks in fights over Bush's judicial appointments and earlier attempts to confirm Bolton.

Describing his talk with Bush, Frist said: "The decision in talking to the president is that he strongly supports John Bolton, as we know, and he asked that we to continue to work. And we'll continue to work."

"It's not dead," he said. "It is going to require some continued talking and discussion."

It's dead, and I'll bet Frist is pissed to have to perform this public walkback. The Imperial Presidency continues, but Bush doesn't realize that this isn't the way you keep your people happy. You can damn well be sure that this behavior has been duly noted by the rest of the caucus.

UPDATE: I don't know if any of the bloggers have made this plain yet. John R. Bolton was listed as a director of the Project for a New American Century, the neocon think tank, in the year 2000.

UPDATE 2: Welcome AOL blogchannel readers! The top of the site link will take you to more recent posts. We have range here, and some experts. Hang around a bit and enjoy.

Denying Reality

How Cheney Fooled Himself

By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page A21

The assertion of the "Downing Street Memo" that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of invasion has understandably become a rallying point for the war's opponents. But in some ways more devastating are other recently disclosed documents in which British officials warned that "there was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." The British worried at the time that "U.S. military plans are virtually silent" on the fact that "a postwar occupation of Iraq could lead to a protracted and costly nation-building exercise."

The most damaging document supporting this claim is not secret, and remains one of the most important artifacts of the prewar debate. It is the transcript of "Meet the Press" from March 16, 2003, in which Vice President Cheney gave voice to the administration's optimistic assumptions that have now been laid low by reality.

Host Tim Russert asked whether "we would have to have several hundred thousand troops there" in Iraq "for several years in order to maintain stability." Cheney replied: "I disagree." He wouldn't say how many troops were needed, but he added that "to suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don't think is accurate. I think that's an overstatement."

Russert asked: "If your analysis is not correct, and we're not treated as liberators but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?"

Cheney would have none of it. "Well, I don't think it's likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. . . . The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want [is to] get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."

Russert: "And you are convinced the Kurds, the Sunnis, the Shiites will come together in a democracy?"

Cheney: "They have so far." And the vice president concluded: "I think the prospects of being able to achieve this kind of success, if you will, from a political standpoint, are probably better than they would be for virtually any other country and under similar circumstances in that part of the world."

Was Cheney disguising the war's costs for political purposes? It's more likely that he believed every word he said. That suggests that the administration was not misleading the American people nearly so much as it was misleading itself.

Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska says in the current issue of U.S. News & World Report that "the White House is completely disconnected from reality" and that "it's like they're just making it up as they go along." Unfortunately, the evidence of the past suggests that Hagel's acerbic formulation may be exactly right. Those who still see the invasion of Iraq as a noble mission don't need to protect the policy from the war's critics. They need to rescue it from its architects.

I think E.J. is onto something. Bushco is delusional to a point where doubting their sanity is not an illegitimate thing to do.

States' Rights

What Became of Federalism?
# The Bush White House has been favoring Washington over the states.

By John Yoo, John Yoo, a law professor at UC Berkeley and visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, served in the Justice Department from 2001 to 2003.

The recent Supreme Court decision invalidating California's medical marijuana law has come under fire — correctly — from both the left and the right for undermining federalism. But observers have missed the real culprit in the court's flagging interest in balancing federal and state powers: the Bush administration.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O'Connor explained the problem in their dissents. Granting Congress the authority to regulate small amounts of marijuana grown in a backyard — marijuana that is never sold and never crosses state lines — makes a mockery of the efforts of the Constitution's framers to place limits on federal powers.

"If Congress can regulate this … then it can regulate virtually anything," wrote Thomas, "and the federal government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers."

But why blame the Bush administration too? In the medical marijuana case, it was the Bush Justice Department that decided to defend use of the federal drug laws to suppress homegrown marijuana.

That decision followed many others that show the administration's lack of interest in the proper balance of powers between state and federal governments.

Consider its position on these issues:

• The right to die: Then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft ordered that federal laws prohibit Oregon doctors from prescribing lethal doses of controlled drugs to terminally ill patients. He threatened to revoke the federal licenses of doctors who followed the Oregon law allowing physician-assisted suicide. Lower federal courts blocked him, but the administration has pursued the case to the Supreme Court, which will review it this fall.

• The president's support for Congress' efforts to block the death of Terri Schiavo: Congress issued an extraordinary directive to the federal courts to intervene in the normal workings of family law, an area that has remained under the control of the states since the birth of the republic. Fortunately, in that case, the federal courts proved more mindful of federalism than Congress and refused.

• Gay marriage: Last year, in response to "activist judges and local officials" in Massachusetts and San Francisco, the president proposed a constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman. The "Family Marriage Amendment" would override state laws experimenting with gay marriage.

• The No Child Left Behind Act: This 2002 Bush law reduces state autonomy in education by imposing uniform testing requirements. It uses the threat of significant restructuring of school operations if districts do not meet federal standards, all in an area that has historically fallen under the control of states.

The best of intentions may be behind these measures, but they follow a dangerous constitutional strategy. Demanding rigid, one-size-fits-all nationwide rules counteracts the benefits of federalism, which calls for decentralized governance. Federalism allows states to compete for residents and businesses. Some will choose to live in California because they are willing to trade high taxes for strong environmental rules, while others may want to live in Massachusetts because of gay marriage.

Worse, imposing national rules in these areas suppresses the ability of states to serve as "laboratories of democracy." As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis observed, "It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

This is one of those rare issues about which right and left will broadly agree, although for slightly different reasons.

However, I do think that Yoo's last point is bogus: people tend to live where they can find work rather than by shopping state laws.

Growing Threat

Black Market in Stolen Credit Card Data Thrives on Internet

By TOM ZELLER Jr.
Published: June 21, 2005

"Want drive fast cars?" asks an advertisement, in broken English, atop the Web site iaaca.com. "Want live in premium hotels? Want own beautiful girls? It's possible with dumps from Zo0mer." A "dump," in the blunt vernacular of a relentlessly flourishing online black market, is a credit card number. And what Zo0mer is peddling is stolen account information - name, billing address, phone - for Gold Visa cards and MasterCards at $100 apiece.

It is not clear whether any data stolen from CardSystems Solutions, the payment processor reported on Friday to have exposed 40 million credit card accounts to possible theft, has entered this black market. But law enforcement officials and security experts say it is a safe bet that the data will eventually be peddled at sites like iaaca.com - its very name a swaggering shorthand for International Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity.

For despite years of security improvements and tougher, more coordinated law enforcement efforts, the information that criminals siphon - credit card and bank account numbers, and whole buckets of raw consumer information - is boldly hawked on the Internet. The data's value arises from its ready conversion into online purchases, counterfeit card manufacture, or more elaborate identity-theft schemes.

The online trade in credit card and bank account numbers, as well as other raw consumer information, is highly structured. There are buyers and sellers, intermediaries and even service industries. The players come from all over the world, but most of the Web sites where they meet are run from computer servers in the former Soviet Union, making them difficult to police.

Traders quickly earn titles, ratings and reputations for the quality of the goods they deliver - quality that also determines prices. And a wealth of institutional knowledge and shared wisdom is doled out to newcomers seeking entry into the market, like how to move payments and the best time of month to crack an account.

The Federal Trade Commission estimates that roughly 10 million Americans have their personal information pilfered and misused in some way or another every year, costing consumers $5 billion and businesses $48 billion annually.

"There's so much to this," said Jim Melnick, a former Russian affairs analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now the director of threat development at iDefense, a company in Reston, Va., that tracks cybercrime. "The story that needs to be told is the larger, long-term threat to the American financial industry. It's a cancer. It's not going to kill you now, but slowly, over time."

Identity theft may just be the thing that moves us back to a cash economy. Does anybody know how other countries are dealing with the problem?

You can make sure that you don't add to the problem by keeping your anti-virus and spyblock signatures current.

McCarthyism Redux

Republicans take aim at their small-screen enemies
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

21 June 2005

Democrats are in uproar over what they see as a naked attempt by Republicans to impose more conservative views on American public television and radio channels, notable for their sober and serious BBC-style reporting and analysis, but regarded by the right as a bastion of the detested "liberal media".

The attack is two-pronged, financial and managerial. Last week a House committee voted to slash the budget of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the supervisory agency for public television and radio, by 25 per cent, or $100m (£55m), to $300m.

Separately, Kenneth Tomlinson, the CPB chairman and a Republican, is said to be rushing through the appointment of Patricia Harrison as president and chief executive. Ms Harrison, a senior official at the State Department, has no broadcasting experience. She was however once co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee.

The Republican-dominated CPB board was scheduled to discuss the appointment yesterday, but every indication was that Ms Harrison would be chosen.

In a sign of Democratic unease, three leading senators ­ among them Hillary Clinton ­ have sent a letter to Mr Tomlinson urging a delay. The letter spoke of "serious concerns" about reports that Mr Tomlinson was interfering in the running of CPB, which distributes federal funding for public broadcasting, and which was set up to be a buffer that kept the politicians at a safe distance.

But at a time when Republicans control the White House as well as both chambers on Capitol Hill, such niceties count for little. Mr Tomlinson himself is on the record as wanting "to restore objectivity and balance" in programming ­ a thinly veiled complaint about public broadcasting's alleged liberal slant ­ which supporters see as a threat to its prized independence.

"Public media is now under attack ... by the right-wing media and their allies at the CPB," said Bill Moyers, the recently departed presenter of the NOW programme, a special bugbear of conservatives.

Under its new host, NOW has been slashed from an hour to 30 minutes in length, while a new talk show, featuring arch conservatives from The Wall Street Journal's editorial pages, has been added.

In other controversial moves Mr Tomlinson has enlisted a former White House aide to keep an eye on two ombudsmen recently installed to monitor the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). Last week, it emerged that CPB last year paid some $15,000 to two Republican lobbyists, payments that were not revealed to the full board.

There are days when I feel like the best I can do is to simply document the outrages as we slide back into the Middle Ages. Do not stop at the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, do not collect $200.

Flimsy

A Flicker Away From a Blackout
Canadian Engineers Say Rare Glitch Suggests Ongoing Threat to Power Grid

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page A15

TORONTO -- At 4:15 p.m. on May 27, the lights flickered across Ontario.

Subway cars in Toronto rolled to a stop while safety signals were reset. Pizza oven doors flew open on the ground floor of the city's landmark CN Tower. Cement and steel plants paused while machinery was restarted. Tens of thousands of computers automatically shut down and rebooted.

Hydro One, the Toronto-based electric utility, quickly issued a press statement seeking to reassure the public that the utility's "equipment protection worked as designed to isolate the fault."

In fact, the situation was much more tenuous. The power blip involved an extremely rare, still unexplained failure of two protection systems, according to internal documents of the utility, reports to oversight agencies and eight engineers. The eight are part of a group that has been on strike since June 6. By their accounts, the failure brought the region's power grid to the verge of a blackout like the one that struck on Aug. 14, 2003, plunging 50 million people in the United States and Canada into darkness.

"It was very bizarre, very disconcerting. And we may have a major problem on our hands," said engineer Aaron Cooperberg.

He and other engineers said that because they are striking, the precise cause of the malfunction has not been identified, and they say it could happen again. "Fundamentally, we had a very close call, and we don't know why," said another engineer, one of three who asked not to be identified, saying they feared retaliation by the company.

The electrical grid handled by Hydro One, which has 17,000 miles of high-power electric transmission lines throughout Ontario, managed the blip "very well," said Peter Gregg, vice president for corporate communications at the utility. Much of its cause is still not understood and under investigation, he said, and "we continue to be disappointed with the striking staff who seem to want to scaremonger on this incident."

Striking engineers said they were not seeking to pressure the company as part of their labor dispute. They said they were speaking out because they were worried that a threat remains to a power system they care about. "We're not pointing fingers," said one. "This isn't about a strike. It's about reliability of the system."

The May 27 incident set power generators in New York, Massachusetts, New Brunswick and Ontario swinging in wild oscillation, fighting one another to try to cope, according to official reports filed with oversight authorities in Canada and the United States.

Think about this: we are only seconds away from another east coast blackout on any given day. Nothing has been done to update this critical infrastructure in years, despite the increases in demands. This will be so fun in the middle of a pandemic flu.

Hand Me Downs

Some Politics May Be Etched in the Genes

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: June 21, 2005

Political scientists have long held that people's upbringing and experience determine their political views. A child raised on peace protests and Bush-loathing generally tracks left as an adult, unless derailed by some powerful life experience. One reared on tax protests and a hatred of Kennedys usually lists to the right.

But on the basis of a new study, a team of political scientists is arguing that people's gut-level reaction to issues like the death penalty, taxes and abortion is strongly influenced by genetic inheritance. The new research builds on a series of studies that indicate that people's general approach to social issues - more conservative or more progressive - is influenced by genes.

Environmental influences like upbringing, the study suggests, play a more central role in party affiliation as a Democrat or Republican, much as they do in affiliation with a sports team.

The report, which appears in the current issue of The American Political Science Review, the profession's premier journal, uses genetics to help answer several open questions in political science.

They include why some people defect from the party in which they were raised and why some political campaigns, like the 2004 presidential election, turn into verbal blood sport, though polls find little disparity in most Americans' views on specific issues like gun control and affirmative action.

The study is the first on genetics to appear in the journal. "I thought here's something new and different by respected political scholars that many political scientists never saw before in their lives," said Dr. Lee Sigelman, editor of the journal and a professor of political science at George Washington University.

Dr. Sigelman said that in many fields the findings "would create nothing more than a large yawn," but that "in ours, maybe people will storm the barricades."

Geneticists who study behavior and personality have known for 30 years that genes play a large role in people's instinctive emotional responses to certain issues, their social temperament.

It is not that opinions on specific issues are written into a person's DNA. Rather, genes prime people to respond cautiously or openly to the mores of a social group.

Only recently have researchers begun to examine how these predispositions, in combination with childhood and later life experiences, shape political behavior.

I'm guessing that this makes me a throwback to some earlier generation (one I never met.) The rest of my family proudly describes itself as "somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun." I'm significantly more political, more liberal and more religious than they are. Perhaps my mother is right and they did find me under a cabbage leaf.

TSA Data Base

Jun 20, 3:24 PM EDT

AP: Feds Collect Data on Air Travelers

By LESLIE MILLER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal agency collected extensive personal information about airline passengers although Congress told it not to and it said it wouldn't, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

A Transportation Security Administration contractor used three data brokers to collect detailed information about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 in order to test a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, according to documents that will be published in the Federal Register this week.

The TSA had ordered the airlines to turn over data on those passengers, called passenger name records, in November.

The contractor, EagleForce Associates, then combined the passenger name records with commercial data from three contractors that included first, last and middle names, home address and phone number, birthdate, name suffix, second surname, spouse first name, gender, second address, third address, ZIP code and latitude and longitude of address.

EagleForce then produced CD-ROMS containing the information "and provided those CD-ROMS to TSA for use in watch list match testing," the documents said.

According to previous official notices, TSA had said it would not store commercial data about airline passengers.

The Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits the government from keeping a secret database.

"I'm just floored," said Tim Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. "This is like creating an FBI file, not just some simple check, and then they're storing the data."

This is shocking and alarming. Given the amount of personal data that's been hacked or accidentally released over the last month (ChoicePoint and others) and the fact that the government's networks are a long way from secure, this is truly upsetting. The data base and the CD-ROMs should be destroyed immediately.

The Dark Side

Robert Seltzer: WWJDD? Or 'What Would James Dobson Do?'

Web Posted: 06/19/2005 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

It is happening in churches, too. Remember when pastors used to preach tolerance, when their sermons exhorted us to reach out, to embrace people of different races and cultures? Now the message is not What Would Jesus Do, but What Would James Dobson Do.

The proselytizers — to call them preachers is to besmirch the calling — have invaded the political arena. There is nothing wrong with that; if they see social wrongs, religious officials should lobby politicians to right them. But in doing so, they should not condemn their enemies, those who do not follow in righteous lock step, as heathens.

Yet that is precisely what the zealots are doing. Consider the firestorm over judicial nominations. Long before the compromise bemoaned by the religious right, Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, helped stage a rally to support President Bush's nominees. The sponsors called it "Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith," as if their opponents were soldiers summoned by Satan.

The vitriol would be comical — if it were not so hateful and destructive. After Newsweek reported the desecration of the Koran at Guantanamo Bay — a report it later retracted — a preacher seemed disappointed that the allegation proved false. He put up a sign in front of his church, the Danieltown Baptist Church in Forest City, N.C. It stated: "The Koran needs to be flushed."

This kind of nonsense damaged the preacher, the Rev. Creighton Lovelace, more than it did his targets. He may not have realized it, but sometimes perpetrators are victims — victims of their own hostility and ignorance. By cloaking himself in righteousness, he stripped himself of dignity.

To his credit, Lovelace took down the sign a few days later, saying he realized it was offensive. He apologized to the Muslim community for his actions. One hopes that his brothers and sisters in the current political/religious battles will be similarly enlightened.

Seltzer is a lousy student of history. Religion in American has always been hellfire and brimstone. Read Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the hands of an angry God."

Another Incrementalist

Ronald Brownstein:
Washington Outlook
U.S. Healthcare Problem Too Big for Employers and Workers
Like a patient ignoring an ominous lump, Washington has spent years hiding from America's healthcare crisis. Now we'll soon learn whether President Bush and Congress will pay attention even if they are hit, so to speak, by a truck.

General Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers are barreling toward an explosive collision over the company's effort to shift more of its crushing healthcare burden to its unionized workers.

GM is seeking concessions by the end of June, but union officials say they won't change their labor contract before it expires in 2007.

With many Americans already unnerved by persistent trade deficits, airline pension defaults and GM's recent announcement of 25,000 layoffs, the political and economic consequences could be profound if the GM-union conflict escalates into a strike or lockout. Self-preservation alone might encourage a president and a Congress with sinking approval ratings to confront the underlying healthcare problems fueling this dispute with even a fraction of the concern that they mustered for the treatment of a single Florida woman, Terri Schiavo.

To put it mildly, exploding healthcare costs present a more tangible problem for many more Americans than right-to-die cases. Since 2000, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's authoritative survey, healthcare premiums for family coverage have increased by 59%, six times faster than inflation.

Higher costs, which encourage employers to drop coverage and discourage employees from purchasing it when offered, are swelling the number of uninsured. Meanwhile, managers and workers in companies that still provide coverage are facing no-win disputes over how to split escalating bills.

That tension triggered the bitter four-month grocery strike settled last winter in Southern California. Now, the same fuse is igniting the confrontation between GM and the UAW.

The company's fundamental problem is that it has not designed enough cars that consumers like. But there's no question that unsustainable healthcare bills are compounding its distress.

In 1996, GM spent $3 billion to provide healthcare to 1.2 million workers, retirees and family members. This year, it expects to spend $5.6 billion to cover 1.1 million people. That means GM's per-person expenditures for healthcare have doubled (from $2,500 to nearly $5,100) in less than a decade. GM now spends more than $1,500 on healthcare for each car it produces. That's more than it spends on steel.

More importantly, that's also significantly more than its key foreign competitors spend on healthcare. GM officials estimate that healthcare costs for Toyota are only about one-fourth as much per car, largely because the government pays more of the tab in Japan than in the U.S.

This is a problem too big for GM and its workers to resolve alone. Whether or not they negotiate a new formula for dividing healthcare costs, the prognosis is for perpetual conflict and economic strain unless the overall increase in medical costs is slowed. And that requires national action.

There's no silver bullet for controlling medical costs. The inability of even a massive consumer like GM, with its vast bargaining power, to hold down its bills belies the simplistic suggestions from Bush and conservative thinkers that transferring more of the cost to individuals will significantly reduce costs by making patients smarter consumers.

Instead, meaningful cost control requires a comprehensive agenda. One place to start would be by modernizing the healthcare industry's antiquated record-keeping and billing systems.

Brownstein is talking about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The only solution to this situation is single payer and everyone knows it. And we'll get it when GM, KPMG and other major Republican donors decide that it is in their best interests. We're almost there.

Turmoil

Original Sin

Someone Else's Child
By BOB HERBERT
Published: June 20, 2005

Last week's New York Times/CBS News Poll found that the mounting casualties and continuing turmoil in Iraq have made Americans increasingly pessimistic about the war. A majority said the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq and only 37 percent approved of the president's handling of the war.

What hasn't changed is the fact that the vast majority of the parents who support the war do not want their children to fight it. A woman in the affluent New York suburb of Ridgewood, N.J., who has a daughter in high school and a younger son, said: "I would not want my children to go. If there wasn't a war it would be different. I support the war and I think we need to be there. But it's not going well. It's becoming like Vietnam. It's a very bad situation. But we can't leave."

I don't know how you win a war that your country doesn't want to fight. We sent too few troops into Iraq in the first place and the number of warm bodies available for Iraq and other military missions going forward is dwindling alarmingly. The Bush crowd may be bellicose, but for most Americans the biggest contribution to the war effort is a bumper sticker that says "support our troops," and maybe a belligerent call to a talk radio station.

The home-front "warriors" who find it so easy to give the thumbs up to war endanger the truly valorous men and women who are actually willing to put on a uniform, pick up a weapon and place their lives on the line.

The president and these home-front warriors got us into this war and now they don't know how to get us out. Nor do they have a satisfactory answer to the important ethical question: how do you justify sending other people's children off to fight while keeping a cloak of protection around your own kids?

If the United States had a draft (for which there is no political sentiment), its warriors would be drawn from a much wider swath of the population, and political leaders would think much longer and harder before committing the country to war.

There was a time (I can remember it) when blatant selfishness wasn't something that one copped to quite so easily. It seems to be in vogue now.

Clobber Them

Defective Heart Devices Force Some Scary Medical Decisions
By BARRY MEIER

For Pam Alexson, the decision whether to have a potentially defective heart device removed and replaced was easy. Ms. Alexson, a former nurse in Rehoboth, Mass., who expects to undergo surgery tomorrow, has the same Guidant Corporation defibrillator that failed in a college student who died in March, as well as the same type of genetic heart disease that killed him.

But another heart patient with that Guidant unit, Douglas Parsons, said he was holding back, not because he did not want the device out, but because his history of infection pointed to a bigger risk from surgery .

"I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard spot," said Mr. Parsons, a 62-year-old retired high school teacher in Oneonta, N.Y. "I would like to have it removed but I can't take that risk."

Can someone explain to me why this obviously criminal company hasn't been fined? They knew for three years that their gadgets fail (and kill people) and they didn't do anything about it? This makes me wonder why I pay taxes. Here is yet another thing we can thank the FDA for.

What's The Matter With Texas?

Never Steal a Turkey in Lubbock, and Other Tales of Texas Justice
# Racism, 'Tuff on Crime' judges and gutless politicians warp the system.

By Molly Ivins, Molly Ivins is the author, most recently, of "Who Let the Dogs In? Incredible Political Animals I Have Known" (Random House, 2004).

The U.S. Supreme Court rules yet again that another Texas case was wrongfully decided — this time because 19 of 20 blacks had been knocked off the jury pool — and I'm asked to explain what's wrong with criminal justice in Texas, in 750 words. Sure, no problem.

I don't like to be cynical, but one can get a little tired after a long time watching justice meted out in this state. The story doesn't change much, and nothing seems to get better. But for what it's worth, here's what's at the bottom of it.

(1) Racism. In 1998, James Byrd Jr. was dragged to death behind a pickup truck for being black in Jasper. Two of the three men responsible got the death penalty. This was not first time in Texas a white man was given the death penalty for killing a black man. It was the second.

(2) More racism. In 1999, about one-fifth of the adult black citizens of Tulia, population 5,000, were arrested and accused of cocaine dealing on the uncorroborated testimony of a bent narc and notorious liar. No one even stopped to ask how a town that size could support 46 cocaine dealers until a reporter from the Texas Observer showed up.

(3) We elect our prosecutors. There are 254 counties in Texas, nearly every one with its own elected district attorney. The way to get elected is to be "Tuff on Crime." The way to lose is to be "Soft on Crime." In the big cities — Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, among the 10 largest in the nation — we get the usual plead-out mill: perp's public defender advises him to cop to reduced charges, anything to avoid a trial.

But in the small towns and rural areas where heavy crime is rare, a D.A. has to whup on whoever gets caught. Sometime in the '80s, a guy in Lubbock stole 12 frozen turkeys. They were recovered, still frozen. Not only no damage, but no defrost. The guy bought 75 years, which works out to 6.3 years per bird. Don't steal a turkey in Lubbock.

(4) We elect our judges. Only way to get elected is to be Tuff on Crime. Only way to lose is to be Soft on Crime. In the Case of the Sleeping Lawyer, a guy on death row appealed on grounds his lawyer had slept through his trial, thus providing him with less than adequate counsel. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that even though the lawyer slept through much of the trial, he didn't sleep during the important parts, so the conviction stood.

(5) An appeal process that isn't worth squat. If you're in, you can't get out. If you draw the death penalty in Texas, you effectively have 30 days to present new evidence. After that, you're toast. Doesn't matter if someone else confesses on Day 31. Doesn't even matter if you could provide DNA evidence proving it wasn't you. (The Legislature is still trying to fix that one.) Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are of the opinion that actual innocence is not necessarily a bar to execution (Herrera vs. Collins). It took a near-miracle to get the Tulia drug defendants out.

(6) Gutless politicians. Texas runs the largest prison system on Earth. Texas executes the retarded, the insane and people who were children when they committed their crimes, until the Supreme Court stopped that only three months ago. Texas executes foreigners without notifying their home countries. Every poll shows Texans do not want to execute people in these categories. Politicians are afraid to stop it for fear someone will say they're Soft on Crime.

You've met Labrador retrievers brighter than some of the people we execute. We had a guy on the row who thought he was going to die because he couldn't read. He spent hours on his bunk trying to memorize the ABCs. Never could do it. We execute people easily as crazy as the one in Florida who spent years crawling around on all fours, barking, under the impression that he was a black dog in the seventh circle of hell. But I'm sure they understand right from wrong, and know why they're being punished. Arf.

(7) A bent system. For years Texas used an expert witness most people called "Dr. Death." Never saw a perp he couldn't guarantee would be a mortal menace for the rest of his days. Only one solution: Kill him. Just one little hitch: In many of those cases, Dr. Death never examined the accused, never talked to the accused, never got near the accused. He was reprimanded twice in the 1980s by the American Psychiatric Assn., then expelled from the group in 1995 because his evidence was found unethical and untrustworthy.

In another case, the Supremes threw out the death sentence because the psychologist said the perp was a danger on account of being Latino. Then there was the Houston police lab, so unbelievably sorry, sloppy and just plain maliciously wrong that the courts had to throw out a bunch of those cases too.

But please don't get the idea that just because a few of these errors were caught on long-shot appeals, justice actually works here. We know about so many more miscarriages it would make you vomit, and can't even guess at how many we don't know about.

I'm at 932 words and I haven't even gotten to the 5th Circuit, the parole board, why you can spend months in jail without ever seeing a lawyer …

Now remind me again why the state system is so superior to the federal....

Criminal

British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
Michael Smith

A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.

The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers - the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.

Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush.

Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.

Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the “spikes” began in May 2002.

However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.

The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.

The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.

You'll note that you aren't seeing this in the NYT, the WaPo or the LAT. The US isn't a party to the International Criminal Court agreement, but Blair, Howard and Hoon are subject to it and the Brits are sweating. As they should.

Backstabbing

New US move to spoil climate accord

Mark Townsend in New York
Sunday June 19, 2005
The Observer

Extraordinary efforts by the White House to scupper Britain's attempts to tackle global warming have been revealed in leaked US government documents obtained by The Observer.

These papers - part of the Bush administration's submission to the G8 action plan for Gleneagles next month - show how the United States, over the past two months, has been secretly undermining Tony Blair's proposals to tackle climate change.

The documents obtained by The Observer represent an attempt by the Bush administration to undermine completely the science of climate change and show that the US position has hardened during the G8 negotiations. They also reveal that the White House has withdrawn from a crucial United Nations commitment to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions.

The documents show that Washington officials:

· Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';

· Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;

· Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.

Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'

Another section erased by the White House adds: 'Our world is warming. Climate change is a serious threat that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. And we know that ... mankind's activities are contributing to this warming. This is an issue we must address urgently.' The government's chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, has dismissed the leaking of draft communiques on the grounds that 'there is everything to play for at Gleneagles.' However, there is no doubt that many UK officials have become exasperated by the Bush administration's refusal to accept the basic principle that climate change is happening now and is due to man's activities.

Earlier this month, the senior science academies of the G8 nations, including the US National Academy of Science, issued a statement saying that evidence of climate change was clear enough to compel their leaders to take action. 'There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring,' they said.

It is now clear that this advice has been completely ignored by Bush and his advisers. 'Every year, it (local air pollution) causes millions of premature deaths, and suffering to millions more through respiratory disease,' reads another statement removed by Washington.

Washington also appears to be unsympathetic towards the plight of Africa, the other priority singled out by Blair for the G8 Summit in Gleneagles.

I wonder if Tony Blair is having any buyer's regret about his "friendship" with W?

The Eclipse of Liberalism

Brad DeLong has a superb review of a new biography of economist John Kenneth Galbraith in the current issue of Foreign Affairs . In it, he discusses the eclipse of Galbraith's influence on academic economics in terms of the decline of classical liberalism. In Brad's (correct, I think) judgement

Parker has an explanation -- a relatively convincing one -- for the retreat of Galbraith's politics. The story behind it is the Democratic establishment's loss of nerve. Too many party intellectuals and politicians drink cocktails on Martha's Vineyard, in Parker's view, and too few spend time on the shop floor learning what issues are important to those sweeping up or manning an assembly line or tending the convenience-store cash register from midnight to six a.m. Thus, the mass base of the Democratic Party has withered, and without a mass base Democratic politicians listen too much to their rich contributors and turn into Eisenhower Republicans -- people who are interested above all in balancing the budget. Galbraith, a committed social democrat, has wielded his pen and his tongue in an effort to halt this decades-long rightward drift. But he has failed: his allies are too few, and the loss of nerve among the party elite is too complete.

Parker also has an explanation -- also a relatively convincing one -- for the eclipse of Galbraith's economic thought. The story here is of the blindness of an academic establishment steeped in Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis. Economists, Parker believes, have sold their birthright for a tasteless pottage of mathematical models. As a result, they can say much about theory but little about reality. And they ignore Galbraith because he is a guilt-inducing reminder of how much broader and more relevant economics can be.

Brad expands on author Richard Parker's analysis by further noting what Parker has missed:

What has survived throughout is the American myth of rugged individualism, and it is this that Parker's political story neglects. The power of this myth has meant that the United States is not, and never will be, a European-style social democracy. People may come together for barn raisings, but America is still the land of upward mobility and opportunity, where the most common questions are, I've done it, so why haven't you? and Doesn't this social solidarity stuff mean that I've got to pull more than my share of the weight? In spirit, it is still a nation of upwardly mobile immigrants blessed with an abundance of resources (free land) and an absence of government constraints (free labor).

Galbraith would say, sardonically, that this national self-image is just another fraudulent piece of conventional wisdom -- nurtured by the delusional, who cannot see reality, and the rich, who see it all too well but know that such delusions make them richer and more powerful. And Galbraith would be more than half right. But this self-image is also a very powerful social fact, and this more than anything else explains his waning influence on U.S. politics. It is not that the Democratic establishment has lost its nerve or been seduced by law firms and lobbyists; it is that the old Horatio Alger myth has proved extraordinarily durable.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it has become clear who John Kenneth Galbraith really is: Sisyphus, constantly pushing the boulder of social-democratic enlightenment up the hill. But the hill, it turns out, is too steep, and Galbraith not mighty enough.

I think that Brad is onto something very powerful here for liberals to meditate on. Our task is to restate the political principals of classical liberalism into a society which self-delusionally believes in the myth of the self-made man.

Defying the CW

Where's Daddy?

By Richard Morin
Post
Sunday, June 19, 2005; B5

Psychologists Linda M. Fleming and David J. Tobin can't tell you where to look for today's fathers. But they do know where not to look: on the pages of modern books on child-rearing.

Forget those statistics showing that fathers are playing an ever-increasing role in the lives of their small children. Daddies who change diapers, cart the little one to the pediatrician or help cook for Baby Dearest rate barely a mention in the typical child-care book, Fleming and Tobin of Gannon University in Pennsylvania claim in an article for the journal Psychology of Men & Masculinity.

Instead, they found that recently published guides to raising babies, when they mentioned dads at all, typically perpetuated outdated stereotypes that portray fathers as being little more than what these researchers termed the "parenthetical parent."

To measure what child-raising experts were saying about dads, Tobin and Fleming identified every child-care book published in English during the 1990s that was still in print in 2001. Then they selected books that concentrated on general issues of child-rearing in children from birth to age 6. From the resulting list of 66 books they randomly selected 23 for analysis and scanned the pages of each into a computer.

Then they scrutinized each of the 56,379 paragraphs in these books, counted those that mentioned father's roles in child-rearing, and performed additional analyses to determine how dads were portrayed.

They found that only 4.2 percent of the paragraphs in these books referred to fathers -- and nearly a third of these references were negative. (Because references to mom were so numerous and the tallying so labor intensive, the researchers did not do specific tallies for the maternal side of the partnership.)

When they examined the accompanying photos and illustrations, women outnumbered men 3 to 1. Even when the paragraph referred to a "parent" or used some other gender-neutral term, the message often was clearly intended for mothers. "For example, when discussing stress management techniques for parents, suggestions would include going to the spa, getting one's nails done, or talking with a girlfriend," they wrote.

What these child-care mavens did write about dads was nearly a